Clash of the Elements Part 4: The Return of Dark Matter
by mewmaster93
Summary: After the events of the last story, Riku has ended up plunging head-first into Pop Star, where an unexpected change occurs that leaves him without his elemental powers yet again. With Kirby by his side, Riku will have to reclaim his lost powers...But unbeknownst to both heroes, an old foe is looming in the depths of space, ready to conquer Pop Star once and for all.
1. Chapter 1

"_In the far-off reaches of space, there exists a lone planet shaped like a five-pointed star. This was the planet Pop Star, where dreams and nightmares lived. On this planet was a happy yet sometimes frightening land that had the fitting name of Dream Land. The inhabitants were mostly innocent creatures, undisturbed in their eating and sleeping habits throughout the day and night except for when a nightmarish creature would come to sow sorrow and fear. It is when those events come to pass that the citizens of Dream Land turn to their hero, a pink puffball by the name of Kirby._

_I know what you might be thinking. A pink puffball, surely he cannot be that threatening, right? At first glance, such an appearance dissuaded many a person from trusting this 'Kirby' fellow to be a hero, nonetheless their hero. The lack of a real origin for this supposed 'hero' was also a factor in their distrust. Nobody knew what Kirby was or where he came from, so he despite his cutesy appearance fitting in perfectly with the sweet dream theme of Dream Land, he was somewhat of an outcast._

_The first time Kirby had to prove himself came rather quickly though, as the 'reigning' king, a penguin…eagle…ummm duck-like figure by the name of King Dedede one day decided to ransack the villages of Dream Land, taking all the food for himself. Kirby, who mostly spent his days eating and sleeping without much of a care in the world towards the opinion of others, pursued King Dedede to his castle and defeated him in arena combat, securing the food for the people of Dream Land and earning some of their respect._

_The next time Kirby was called to action was when one day, he found himself unable to dream, a problematic conundrum that required the pink warrior to travel to the Fountain of Dreams to determine what the problem was. Once there, he found King Dedede bathing in its sacred waters, and was told that the King had split apart the fabled Star Rod into seven pieces. Six were in the hands of the King's pals, and Kirby was given no choice but to wander Dream Land to recover the parts so he and the citizens of the land could dream again._

_It was during this adventure that Kirby first met Meta Knight, a stoic if somewhat enigmatic warrior that hid his true appearance, a blue creature similar in shape of Kirby, behind a metal mask and fought with the legendary blade Galaxia. But Kirby, with a blade of his own, defeated the powerful Meta Knight in single combat and secured the second to last Star Rod fragment. Returning to the fountain, Kirby fought King Dedede and defeated him, and reassembled the Star Rod. However, the King was frantic to stop him from putting it back in place, and there was a rather noble reason behind his actions this time…_

_Hidden within the Fountain of Dreams was Nightmare, a powerful entity born from the nightmares of everyone on Dream Land. With the Star Rod restored to its rightful perch, Nightmare was able to emerge from the fountain and declare his desire to spread nightmares across the land. Kirby was forced to take up the Star Rod, and with a little help from King Dedede the pink warrior was able to defeat the Nightmare and banish him from Dream Land for good._

_Kirby had encountered his first nightmare that day, but managed to prove triumphant and earned his reputation as the mighty Star Warrior of Dream Land. With dreams restored to the land, Kirby could rest easy knowing that Nightmare would never return again. _

_Over time, Kirby came to encounter other powerful nightmares, some with dreams of grandeur that made them more threatening than Nightmare himself. There was Marx, who tricked Kirby into assembling the wish-maker NOVA so he could obtain ultimate power. There was Dark Mind, a devilish entity from the Mirror World that sought to conquer both his world and Dream Land. There was Dark Nebula, a…Ummm…Well actually, he kind of just showed up out of nowhere one day while Kirby was on a rampage to find his Strawberry Shortcake. Kirby killed him before he could say anything important, really. _

_Anyways, each of these nightmarish entities were soundly defeated before they could cause any lasting harm to Dream Land. Sometimes during these adventures, Kirby would lock blades with Meta Knight and either defeat or team-up with King Dedede to defeat a common foe. Kirby had other allies that were more friendly in nature though. Rick the Hamster, Kine the Fish, Coo the Owl, Nago the Cat, Chuchu the Octopus, and Pitch the Bird were only a few of Kirby's many friends. But out in the depths of space, there was one nightmare that greatly loathed what Kirby had…_

_Its name was Zero, a lonesome red-eyed white orb that created and spread about Dark Matter throughout space to conquer planets and rob the residents of free will. Zero was drawn to Pop Star in particular though, for one strangely defined reason. Zero was a stoic creature, incapable of expressing emotion, but a single glance at the happiness and friendships born in Pop Star gave birth to a loathing attitude towards its citizens. Casting aside Dark Matter from its body, Zero sought to conquer the planet and rob the citizens of their happy dreams and friendships forever. _

_Zero was relentless in its pursuit of its goal, trying three times over to conquer Pop Star only to be met with opposition in the form of Kirby and his friends. One after another, Zero's Dark Matter agents were destroyed, culminating in the white orb dying once. But with such a strong desire, Zero was reborn as 02, a winged creature with an off-putting halo and demonic wings that still had the bloody eye and pale white appearance its original body had. _

_02 tried its hardest to devour Kirby's world and five other in the grasp of Dark Matter, but was ultimately destroyed in battle thanks to Kirby's use of the fabled Crystal Shards. Though Dark Matter was purged from the six worlds thanks to this act, the fact that Zero had already shown the ability to return from the dead meant that it was quite possible for him to return again…_

_But Kirby cared very little about such things. The pink star warrior was a laid-back hero, he didn't spend hours on end moping about terrible things that may happen. He was perfectly fine just lying back and letting the days go on by, with food and sleep usually being his primary focus until something exciting happens that entices his sense of adventure. And little did Kirby know, a new adventure would soon come his way, but not in the way he expected…"_

**Clash of the Elements Part 4, Story 3: The Return of Dark Matter**

**Chapter 1: Not a Good Way to Start…**

It was a peaceful day in Dream Land, as it should be when the random monster isn't trying to conquer the world. The skies were crisp and blue, the clouds were their rotund little selves as they floated in the sky, and the flowers and grass were sickly sweet in their appearances as they danced back and forth in tune with the passing spring breeze. The rotund little pink warrior that everyone knows by the name of Kirby was resting on the branch of a lone tree that stretched above the confines of his domed stone abode, his eyelids closed as he snored in a cutesy manner, his mind adrift in the land of a dessert filled dream.

A thought bubble appears above Kirby's head, revealing that he is currently climbing a giant slice of chocolate cake with a pickaxe made out of a peppermint candy cane in an attempt to reach shiny cherry at the very top of the snow-represented mound of frosting. The pink warrior had sugar on the brain at the moment, but can anyone really be surprised by that? Its not like Kirby had to maintain a nutritious diet to say the least, so the more pleasurable treats are the subject of his dreams more often than stuff like fruits or vegetables.

As the dream reached its end with Kirby just about ready to dig into the sweet cherry at the top of the chocolate cake mountain, a bit of drool begins to slip out of the side of his mouth, his expression turning warm and fuzzy as he lets out a light-hearted squeak and the dream version of himself opening his mouth wide to eat the imaginary cherry. But before he take the triumphant bite, a large object falls from the sky and crashes down a fair distance away from Kirby's home. A tremor shakes through most of Dream Land, causing many a bird to take to the skies while Kirby's dream bubble is popped and with his blue eyes widening in blank shock the pink warrior is quickly dropped from the tree branch.

But with how round and soft he is, Kirby bounces off of the grass on his backside and is promptly flipped onto his face without any scratch marring his body. After a second of having his sleep interrupted, Kirby leaps onto his small oval-shaped feet and pokes his head up, looking in the distance to see a rising plume of smoke where the tremor creating impact occurred. With prior experience telling him that such crashes were either caused by a friend in need or a foe in waiting, Kirby rushes past his house with his stubby arms swinging as he goes to investigate the source of the crash.

At the smoldering crater where the smoke arises from, a mysterious shadow lies in the center. He groans inside of his head as he awakens from the impact, his consciousness apparently having been shutdown for quite some time as he immediately thinks to himself _"Ugh…Huh? I'm…Alive? That's impossible…I was on the verge of death before, and the only one who could have given me my body back…"_ The thoughts of this mysterious person verged on utter confusion, but the daze of his awakening prevented him from getting too frantic for the time being.

Trying to get a feel for his surroundings, the figure looks up towards the sky and sees the clear blue air along with the massive crater surrounding his body. _"Huh…So I'm on another planet…I guess I was expunged here after that last battle…But how long have I been out for, and why do I feel so weightless?" _

It was hard for the person to feel their arms and legs, but nonetheless they tried to push themselves onto their feet so they could get a better feel of the environment standing up. Once the person was on their feet, they commented in their mind _"Huh…The center of this crater is rather deep…That's curious. Still can't feel anything, that's even stranger. And the sky looks so bright and warm…Could this possibly be Heaven?"_

The person shakes their head, thinking just a moment later _"No wait, who would enter Heaven by creating a crater in a holy land?" _in a logical manner.

After standing still for a few more seconds, the mysterious person looks up and sees the pink puffball warrior Kirby looking down at him while he stood on his tip-toes. Blinking twice in surprise, the mysterious figure stares blankly at Kirby and after a moment of confusion remembers the being and thinks to himself _"…Ok, well that solves that. I've landed in Dream Land. And once again, the planet's hero has come across my body…Geez, how many coincidences like this are going to occur during my journeys?"_

Not wanting to show ill-well towards the star warrior, the mysterious person waves at Kirby from the bottom of the crater. Kirby pokes his right hand in front of his mouth in a curious manner and pulls his body back a bit, smiling and proceeding to say to the person "Poyo! Poyo Poyo?"

…Ok, we are going to need a translator to understand a single thing Kirby is saying. Give me just a moment to set one of those up…*Ahem*

Anyways, what Kirby said was "Hello! Who are you?"

The mysterious person looks up at Kirby, and though the star warrior spoke in a completely different language he knew exactly what was being said and was able to translate it into his mind. Much like a few other circumstances so far, this was a rather curious thing. Hoping that the pink puffball knew English, the mysterious person waved his hand Kirby, but what came out of his mouth was something he did not expect "Poyo! Poyo Poyo Poyo!" (Rough Translation: Hellium! I am a Rocky Maw!")

Blinking twice and freezing in place at what he just heard coming from his mouth, the mysterious person quickly tried to fold his hands in front of his mouth, only to find that they were barely able to cross in front of his lips. It was at this point that the person tried to look down at his body, only to be taken completely aback by a couple of oval-shaped feet at the bottom of his body. He then looked at his stubby hands in front of his body, noticed that he not only had no more fingers or toes, but his skin had become a slick red. He had also lost all of his hair and clothing, with the only feature remaining from his old body being his brown eyes, though the shape had become vertical ovals.

Standing still with mouth agape for a few moments, the mysterious person quickly raised his stubby arms into the sky and exclaimed with the utmost panicking tone "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUG HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH HHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

His cry was so loud that it even reached the depths of space, and for an area devoid of sound the scream managed to echo across many nearby planets. The scream lasted for ten seconds, but it felt as though it had prolonged for a much longer period of time before it finally stopped. The mysterious person was left in a huff in the center of the crater, but the unfazed Kirby merely blinked twice and said to the one who looked like him "Ummm…Are you alright?"

The mysterious being stood in place with hands touching the sides of his rotund body, his eyes twitching in panic as he thinks to himself _"This can't be happening…This can't be happening…Why the heck am I a Kirby?! …Or whatever the heck species Kirby is…Oh goodness this is a nightmare…" _Calming down for a moment, the person thought to himself _"Hey wait a second, why are my thoughts in perfect English?"_

Shaking his head and reverting to a state of panic, he continues to think _"Never mind that, I need to keep panicking here!" _

With a constant release of jumbled murmurs, the mysterious person grabs Kirby's attention, and the star warrior jumps down into the crater with a happy smile as he closes his eyelids and pats the person that looked like him on the side of his body and said "Hey, calm down there, there's nothing to worry about here."

The mysterious person leaped back into the incline of the crater, his frightened expression being very clear to Kirby as the person proceeds to say "That's Easter for you to say." Once again the person wasn't able to portray his message correctly with this new language, but he was starting to get a bit of a feel for the thing.

"…Easter? Huh, you look like me yet you seem to have a difficult time speaking. Maybe the impact with the ground jumbled up the old noggin?" Kirby says, swirling his left hand beside his body to represent the mix-up of the mysterious Kirby's mind.

The mysterious person calms down for a moment, finding a bit of logic in Kirby's words as he tries to gather his thoughts and thinks to himself at the same time _"That's true actually…It doesn't make sense that I can understand what Kirby is saying if I didn't also have the ability to speak his language too…I just need to calm down and try to get my point across. No point looming on my changed appearance right now…"_

Letting out a light cough, the mysterious person stands up on the side of the crater and says to Kirby in a more fluent voice "Sorry for my earlier freak-out. My name is Riku Mew, and I shouldn't waste any time in saying that I know who you are, Kirby."

The pink puffball flinches slightly in surprise, and after pointing towards himself he smiles and asks in return "Oh really? Who told you about me?"

Riku shakes his head and says to Kirby "No one. Its kind of complicated, but I just know about you."

Kirby shrugs, caring little about the reasons behind Riku's knowledge just as the boy expected, and Kirby proceeds to ask "So why did you have a hard time speaking to me?"

Riku nervously swerves his right hand behind his body and rubs the back of it, responding to Kirby's question with "Ummm, this may sound weird, but I don't usually look like this. I'm actually supposed to be a human, but for some reason I've been transformed to look just like you."

"Human?" Kirby pokes his hand against the front of his lips and tilts his head curiously, a glimmer of realization popping upon his face as he says "Oh! You mean like Samus and Mario, right?"

Riku flinches in surprise upon hearing Kirby mention those two particular names, and says with a bit of a stutter "H-Huh? You know those two?"

Kirby responds with "Of course I do! We met during this Smash tourney thing a while ago. They were pretty nice people, even if Samus mostly kept to herself. Were you a part of one of those tourneys and I just never noticed you?"

Kirby's question was direct but filled with relaxed innocence, which caused Riku to freeze in place for a couple moments before he went on to say "Not at all. Trust me, in my human form I'd stick out like a sore thumb amongst everyone else. Its kind of another complicated affair, but I'll try and run you by the gist of it. Basically, I'm an Elemental Overlord, a powerful being capable of naturally controlling all of the elements. I am able to travel through space thanks to one of those elements, and my goal is to help out worlds that need my assistance."

"Ah, well that makes a ton of sense." Kirby takes all of that news in stride. Riku actually looks at the pink puffball in an awkward manner before realizing that this was probably not the strangest thing the star warrior had ever heard about in his entire life.

"So how did you end up here? From the sound of things you didn't intend to come to Pop Star." Kirby proceeds to ask.

"There's a really long story behind that one, and it actually involves an adventure I just had with Samus…Basically, I was thrown unconscious after a final battle with a powerful entity, and I guess my body drifted through space for a while and I ended up here, where…" As Riku speaks with his hands folded as best as he can manage, a rumbling can be felt coming from his stomach that disturbs his concentration and makes him quickly feel weak.

"Ugh…My stomach…It feels so empty…" Riku notes, his right hand rubbing against the part of his body where he feels his belly might be.

"Hehehe, you probably just need some food. A good feast can ease your mind off of any tension too. Luckily I have a bunch of food over at my house, so just follow me and we can curb that hunger of yours." Kirby says in a laid-back tone of hospitality.

"Heh, you're perfectly fine inviting a total stranger to your house?" Riku says with a smile on his face.

"Of course! You don't seem like a troublemaker, so I don't see any reason to think you are a bad guy." Kirby says, and with a turn of his body and a sealing of his mouth the puffball inflates his body and slowly floats out of the crater with a delicate swing of his arms.

After landing on the edge, Kirby turns back at Riku, who is pushing his hands into the air with a struggling expression on his face as he even steps onto the tip of his toes to try and give himself a boost. Kirby looks at Riku with a puzzled glare and says to him "What are you trying to do?"

Riku, with a grunt preceding his sentence, says to the star warrior "I'm trying to use my flight…But for some reason I can't take off!"

"Huh? You can fly? But you don't have the Wing or Jet power-up…" Kirby notes in a tone of curiosity.

"…Power-ups?" Riku opens his eyes and states blankly for a moment before widening his vision in a panic and blurting out in anger as his feet drop against the ground "Oh don't tell me!"

Thrusting his hand against the air, Riku tries to launch a fireball at the side of the crater, but comes out with not even a single spark of flame. Glaring forward, the boy tries to at the very least summon his double-helix bladed sword, and is able to successfully do so in front of his right hand with ease. However, the weapon had shrunk in size to accommodate his new form, and seemed to have a more colorful gleam to it. But nonetheless, none of the elements were attached to the sword, which only caused Riku to groan and say to himself quietly "You have got to be kidding me…"

Kirby asks "What's up Riku?" and the boy looks up at the pink puffball with a disgruntled expression on his cutesy face.

"Ugh…I can't believe I'm going to say this, but whatever caused me to transform into a creature like you must have also caused my elemental powers to be expunged from my body. Something similar happened when I was with Samus, but this time I've lost all of my elements…And since for whatever reason I can't seem to fly without the Wind power on certain worlds, it seems I'm stuck here until I can recover my powers…Wherever all of them might have fallen to, anyways." Riku says to Kirby.

"Huh, so you'll need to go on a power-up collecting hunt?" Kirby says as a reiteration of what the teenage Overlord stated, but in a more concise form.

With a smile on his face, Kirby says to Riku "I actually did something like that a long while ago, so perhaps I can help you out in finding your lost power-ups."

"Really?" Riku says, letting out an exasperated sigh of relief not long afterwards as he proceeds to mimic Kirby's actions and puff up his body so he can float out of the crater, since he has no other means of aerial movement for the time being.

Once Riku lands beside Kirby, the pink puffball taps his right hand against the back of the boy's body and says to him "Sure thing, I'll be glad to help out a fellow hero. But first off, lets get you some food at my place."

Thus Kirby and Riku walk off across Dream Land to go back to the star warrior's house, on what would be the start of a lovely adventure for the two of them…

_Next Time: Unsurprisingly, Whispy Woods is the first boss_


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2: Green Greens**

Not long after traveling back to Kirby's warm stone abode, the pink star warrior was quick to carry out a large plate filled with various assorted desserts and a few sweet fruits such as grapes and cherries. After placing the food down onto the ground in front of the befuddled Riku, the teenage Overlord looks past the side of the mountain of food and says to Kirby "Ummm…Do you have anything healthier? I don't know how well sugar is going to work with how hungry I am."

Kirby smiles at Riku and says with a wave of his hand towards the food "Come on, there's nothing wrong in indulging in some sugary delights when your hungry. I do that all the time, and do I look like I'm in poor health?"

Kirby begins to bury his face into the mountain of desserts, leaving Riku to ponder the star warrior's question with his right hand held below his mouth. "Hmm…I guess I really shouldn't be looking at this situation from a human's point of view. Since I'm a member of Kirby's species, perhaps eating sugar would be the equivalent of nutrients and sustenance for my body?" The boy said quietly

With his stomach rumbling again, Riku shrugged his little arms and said to himself "Meh, forget it, I don't want to collapse from starvation" before proceeding to pluck one piece of cake from the pile of food and placing it inside of his widened mouth.

With cheeks puffing out slightly, Riku gobbles on the cake within his massive innards and swallows into whatever acted as his stomach, an immense sensation of bliss and quenching hunger coming through his body and causing his form to melt down into a deflated form almost instantly as he lets out a prolonged squeal of joy that doesn't make him think for even a second about his lost masculinity. Once this feeling as subsided, Riku wastes no time in returning his mass to normal and plunging straight into the food mountain like it was a mound of dirt waiting to be conquered…Hmm, that is a rather terrible metaphor for this instance.

Either way, the teenage Overlord swings his arms around, swimming through the food in a complete denial of physics as he chomps tunnels through the mountain of food, and Kirby himself actually leaps back out of the food and blinks twice in complete surprise of how quickly the mountain was shrinking with each passing second. It only takes thirty seconds for Riku to devour almost every last piece of food, his crumb covered face and inflated body lying on the center of the plate with only a single piece of strawberry shortcake gripped in his right hand as he wobbles back and forth in place.

Looking at Kirby with only a little bit of energy left within him as his metabolism is fast at work trying to convert all of this food into energy, Riku says to the star warrior "Here…I saved you this bit of food since I knew it was one of your favorites…"

Kirby, after staring for a few more seconds in awe of Riku's swift devouring of all that food, smiles and says to the boy "Heh, thanks for that."

Kirby walks over and leaps slightly, plucking the shortcake from Riku's grasp and putting it in his mouth in a matter of seconds. As the pink puffball chomps down on that delicious delicacy, Riku realizes just how much he has eaten and after looking around with a guilty stare the boy says "…Sorry Kirby, I didn't mean to eat all of your food. I just got way too out of control there since its been so long since I've had something to bite on."

Kirby, with a look of bliss on his face as he closes his eyelids, continue to smile as he says to Riku "Don't worry about it, you only ate about a fourth of my food. You wouldn't believe the amount of storage space I have for this type of stuff."

Kirby's innate ability to write off Riku's gluttony as no big deal allows the teenage Overlord to let out a sigh of relief as his body is reduced to normal size, his hunger now dissolved for the time being. Looking over at the star warrior, Riku grins and says to him "I really do appreciate you doing this for me, even though I'm a complete stranger and all…"

Kirby waves his right hand at Riku and says to him "Aw don't worry about that little detail. Its not every day I get to see someone who looks like me who isn't a clone of myself, an alternate universe counterpart, or Meta Knight."

"Well its not like it would have been hard for you to get along with me if I was a human, since you've seen a few of them before." Riku calmly points out.

"True." Kirby notes with a nod of his head. The star warrior then tilts his head and asks with his right hand pointed below his mouth "Say, what did you look like as a human? Did you have a big nose? Pointed ears? An incredibly serious expression on at all times? Or did-"

As Kirby goes on and on with his curious inquiries, Riku waves his hands in front of his body as he starts to get overwhelmed by the questions, proceeding to say "Kirby, I can only answer one at a time."

Kirby, realizing how inconsiderate his questions were in such a large quantity, pops his hand away from his mouth and says after blinking twice "Sorry about that, I let my curiosity get the best of me."

Riku smiles and says to Kirby "Not a problem. Though to answer what you asked already. I'm pretty certain Mario and Luigi are different from most other humans, so I myself do not have a large nose. Link isn't a human by my standards. And usually my expression remains serious when I'm in the heat of battle, but…Ummm…"

Riku pauses and gives that last answer of his a little more thought than necessary, coming swiftly to a conclusion that he doesn't just have a serious look on his face during battles, but keeps it on a lot when he is in-between fights too. Any smiles he had been giving the heroes of the last two worlds he visited didn't have much of a sense of genuineness to them, especially with the emotional turmoil he had to deal with due to certain events. Recalling how he had been acting on this world so far though, the teenage Overlord realizes that for the first time in a long while he was actually legitimately smiling.

Riku's long train of thought away from the answer to Kirby's third question didn't go unnoticed by the star warrior, who waves his right hand in front of the boy's field of vision as he asks "Hey, you alright there?"

The teenage Overlord snaps out of his thoughts and blinks once in reaction to Kirby's words, saying in a flustered tone of voice "H-Huh? Oh right, I was in the middle of answering your questions. Well to sum things up quickly, my appearance as a human is something like this…"

Riku spends the next couples of minutes detailing everything to Kirby, from his hair and eye color to his clothing. The only thing he doesn't bother to bring up is how he looks when utilizing his Light and Dark powers, since more than likely the pink puffball would learn about that in due time. The very thought of the elemental powers made the teenage Overlord flinch in remembrance, but before he says anything Kirby mentions "Huh, I kind of wish I could see you as a human, but I'll have to stick with the mental image for the time being. Come to think about it, how did you-"

Riku speaks up quickly before Kirby finishes his sentence, assuming the words of the star warrior to be a lead in to another question regarding what he was like as a human. "Kirby, I hate to interrupt, but shouldn't we get a move on to try and find my lost element powers?"

Kirby flinches in surprise, as though he had forgotten all about the purpose in letting Riku follow him back to his house. The pink puffball collects his thoughts and says with a light stutter "O-Oh right. Hmm, I guess the best place for the two of us to start off would be Green Greens."

Riku asks "Huh? Why there?"

Kirby responds with a jolly chuckle before he points out "I usually check out the grassy plains area first whenever I start an adventure out. It always gets me warmed up for the harder areas, plus the sunny atmosphere feels pretty relaxing to walk through."

"Heh, I could use a sunny atmosphere after all the dark planets I traversed with Samus before." Riku says in a joking tone of voice to the star warrior, as he simultaneously waves his right hand in front of his body.

"Well then what are we waiting for? Lets get a move on!" With an enthusiastic declaration, Kirby lifts his body up and waves his arm towards the sky. Riku turns in the direction the pink puffball is looking towards and sees a glimmer in the bright spring skies. Seconds later, a small five-pointed yellow star descends from above and stops in place between both Kirby and Riku, floating in place with a few sparkles leaking from below its shape.

"This is my Warp Star. We can use it to quickly travel to Green Greens." Kirby explains in a brief and concise manner.

As the star warrior leaps onto the right side of his ride and wraps his stubby arms around both sides, Riku nervously asks "W-Will the Warp Star have a problem with a stranger riding on top of it?"

Kirby joyously responds as he detaches his right arm and waves it towards Riku "Of course it won't! I've had people riding on this Warp Star for a long time, and not once has it knocked someone off. Though I should warn you that it does reach top speed in a matter of seconds, so you might want to hang on tightly."

Feeling assured thanks to Kirby's confidence, Riku leaps off of the ground and latches his stubby arms around the Warp Star, gripping it tightly as per the star warrior's advice. The Warp Star then pushes downward, building up pressure underneath its form for a few seconds before launching straight into the sky in an upward curve. The Warp Star carries both heroes through the skies of Dream Land, allowing Riku to catch a glimpse of the land below as they make their way to Green Greens.

There were mountains of ice, ruins buried in sand, a beautiful underwater domain, and even a couple of dormant volcanoes. Within these areas and more Riku would likely end up finding his lost elemental powers. It was already pretty easy to match the environmental aesthetics with the elements he had lost, save for Light and Dark, but for now the teenage Overlord would have to settle on the fact that he would be reclaiming Grass first in the forest environment of Green Greens.

The Warp Star begins its descent, leaving the other environments rapidly behind its starry wake as it makes its way for the ground without showing any signs of halting. While Riku widens his eyes and panics, Kirby keeps a serene look in his eyes as the Warp Star crashes smack dab in the middle of a grassy field, its form exploding into a series of miniature sparkles as Kirby lands and slides along the grass for a few inches, while an unprepared Riku slams face first against the ground and has some dirt skid along the front of his face.

The teenage Overlord considers himself lucky that the skin of a Kirby-like species wasn't prone to scars and the like, otherwise this impact would have hurt a lot more than it did. But with his face still planted into the ground and Kirby glancing at him with a nervous chuckle, Riku says in a muffled tone "I really don't know how I ended up in this position…"

After pushing himself up off of the ground, Riku swipes the dirt off of his face and turns to Kirby, saying to him with a couple blinks of his eyelids "Hey, what happened to the Warp Star?"

"It just went back to its place of origin to repair itself. Don't worry, it has survived worse impacts." Kirby casually answers.

Now that the two heroes had arrived in Green Greens, Kirby was quick to explain a couple basic things with a hand pointed towards a swarm of enemies that lied ahead "Ok, since you are without your basic powers and you aren't used to having my abilities, I'd just like to point out something important you could do to protect yourself."

Kirby dashes forward and stops in front of an orange rotund creature with a single large eye called a Waddle Doo and opens his mouth up wide, creating a powerful vacuum that draws the Waddle Doo into his body against its will. As Riku looks on with a partially disgusted expression, Kirby swallows the Waddle Doo and after a flash of light comes out with a jester's hat with two branches of polka-dot orange and plain red and an orb staff with a crystal blue tip. Turning back to face the teenage Overlord, Kirby waves the staff in front of his body and draws out a stream of beam energy in a swift arc.

After that Kirby smiles and says to Riku "You should be able to copy other creatures' abilities by sucking them in and swallowing them into your stomach. The one I have now is Beam."

Riku, crunching his expression up in slight disgust, says to Kirby "Umm…I don't think I'll feel good sucking in other creatures to absorb their powers. That just doesn't settle well with me at all."

Kirby looks at the boy with an abject look of confusion, blinking twice towards his way before saying with a smile "Oh no no no, you don't absorb them. You copy their powers. Once you've gotten a good use out of their powers, you can just discard it and the original holder will come back to life in seconds. Like so!"

Kirby stands motionless for a few seconds and concentrates, and a star is released from his body as his appearance goes back to normal. A couple moments later, the Waddle Doo reforms from the star right where it originally stood before Kirby sucked it all, and it doesn't look the least bit fazed by what just happened. Kirby then gestures towards Riku and says to him "Go ahead and try it out, then we can move on without pause."

Riku feels a little better knowing that the creatures Kirby eats don't die, and after a couple seconds he waddles forward in front of the Waddle Doo and opens his mouth ready to suck the creature in and get the Beam. However, no vacuum of air draws the Waddle Doo no matter how hard Riku tries to get the process to happen. The Waddle Doo, who already had his eyes widened in panic as it stood in place, notices the red Kirby's lack of suction and quickly gains a gleam in the center of its eye.

A mere second later, Riku closes his mouth and after having only a moment to react in confusion the boy is zapped along his entire body by the Waddle Doo, who waves a beam in an arc from its eye in a manner much like the way Kirby demonstrated the Beam power-up. As Riku's body is lit up like a light bulb, he is launched back into the air, landing on the ground in front of a surprised Kirby with a somewhat singed look to his appearance lasting for a grand total of three seconds before the boy leaps back onto his feet with barely a scratch to his skin. But he does look a little more exhausted, as he lets out a couple of tired breaths before Kirby asks him "What happened?"

"I don't know honestly. I tried what you said, but for some reason I couldn't suck the Waddle Doo in." Riku wraps his mind around this conundrum while rubbing the back of his head as the Waddle Doo turns around and walks along its merry way.

"Huh, well come to think about it, you do have a sword, right?" Kirby asks, reminding the teenage Overlord of the weapon he still carried despite all elemental powers being robbed from it.

"Oh yeah, I guess I can't suck anything up because I'm locked into having the Sword power-up. Makes sense, honestly. And its likely a permanent power-up considering the Waddle Doo's beam didn't knock the Sword out of my body." Riku makes a quick assessment based on Kirby's astute observation, and the star warrior nods his head in agreement.

"Though I do have to ask…What happens when I attack enemies with my power-ups?" Riku asks.

"Oh, they just come back to life later. Anything is possible in the land of dreams, which includes immortality and the ability to return from death. I've gotten into quite a few scrapes in the past that forced me to use up some of my Extra Lives, but otherwise I'm perfectly fine. Though I don't know if that logic would apply to you considering you aren't from this world." Kirby explains a few extra details beyond Riku's question with a rather interesting choice of words.

The teenage Overlord promptly responds to those words after drawing his sword in front of his stubby right hand with a puzzled "Extra Lives? Kirby, what are you talking about?"

"So anyways, shall we get and move on to try and find your lost elemental powers?" Kirby says quickly, dodging the question Riku raised without so much as a change in his cheerful dialect.

Riku, a little outraged at this, blurts out "Hey, you're avoiding my question!" but his exclamation fall on deaf ears as Kirby begins to jog on ahead past the boy to head out on adventure.

Letting out a light sigh of defeat, the boy runs on ahead, trailing behind Kirby as the star warrior crosses the grassy plains and sucks in another Waddle Doo to give himself the Beam power-up once again. Leaping over large ledges and floating over perilous pits is mostly how the two heroes traverse the Green Greens as they make their way towards a lone spring forest in the distance. Along the way, Waddle Doos and Waddle Dees alike are taken down by the combined efforts of Riku's sword and Kirby's beams.

Surprisingly, the enemies don't get much varied beyond that. Likely because the two heroes were traveling and not out to stop someone like King Dedede, but Kirby still commented on how suspicious this all was as the two leaped into the center of a large group of trees "Huh, I at least expected a mini-boss to interrupt our progress."

"There you go again with the video game terminology!" Riku blurts out in a flabbergasted manner as the two of them continue to run through the forest.

"The video whaaat?" Kirby turns to face Riku as they continue running and responds in this obviously oblivious tone of voice.

"Kirby, stop playing dumb with me, you and I both know exactly what you are saaaaaayiiiiinnnnggg!" Before Riku can finish his sentence clearly, he falls into a gap that lied in the middle of the ground, his mind so focused on responding to the pink puffball's words that he didn't actually notice him floating over the gap.

However, the teenage Overlord lands softly on the ground below, the pit thankfully not being bottomless in nature. As Riku groans from the landing, Kirby looks back and proceeds to leap down after the boy, landing on the ground beside him and using his hands to help him onto his feet in a couple of seconds.

"You ok?" Kirby politely asks, and Riku replies by continuing to groan for a couple more seconds and saying to the star warrior "Yeah, I'm fine…I was just a little surprised by the sudden drop."

"Oh no, not you again!" A shrill, somewhat frightened voice says towards the pink puffball to interrupt the two heroes' conversation. Looking up in front of where they stand, the heroes see a large tree with a perfectly cylindrical trunk, puff bundles of leaves, and two hollow eyes and a hollow mouth carved into the front of its body.

"Oh, hey Whispy!" Kirby greets the tree in an innocent manner, waving his right hand towards him in the process.

"Kirby, have you seriously come to beat me up again? Why am I always the first one to get beaten by you whenever you choose to go on an adventure?!" Whispy Woods voices his complaints to the star warrior as his wooden eyebrows arch downward in anger.

"Don't get the wrong idea here Whispy. We didn't come here to fight. So relax, I won't be making this defeat number eight for you." Kirby speaks in a casual manner to the living tree despite how irritated Whispy was because of his presence.

"Number nine, actually." Whispy Woods points out with a quiet murmur before proceeding to say to Kirby "Well if you think I'm just going to let you go running around all willy-nilly in my forest this time around, you are sorely mistaken!"

As Whispy begins to shake his tree branches to rustle the leaves, Kirby looks up at the old tree and says to him "Whispy, calm down. My buddy here just fell into a gap that happened to lead to where you were. We have no intention of-"

As Kirby speaks, a glowing emerald orb begins to descend from Whispy's branches. On the orb is a leaf insignia, and Riku recognizes and points towards it while proclaiming in surprise "That's my Grass element!"

Kirby then interrupts himself and says in a prolonged accent "Neeever mind that, it seems you have something we need, Whispy."

"Well you can't have it! This mysterious object that fell from the sky shall finally allow me to defeat you Kirby!" After proclaiming this, Whispy Woods does a brief inhale and sucks the orb into his body. For a moment, everything is silent, with only Riku having a partially worried look on his face. Then Whispy's eyes burst forth with green light as he lets out an ascended howl of power. His leaves rustle around like a raging storm for a good few seconds before Whispy looks down at the two heroes with his glowing eyes and proclaims in an echoing voice "I AM WHISPY SAGE, THE ASCENDED!"

As vines start to erupt from underneath Whispy's body, Kirby looks at Riku and asks in an unconcerned tone of voice "THAT'S what your elements are capable of?"

Riku, with a panicking glimmer in his eyes, says to Kirby "Not exactly. Then again, this isn't exactly the first time someone else has become power mad after absorbing one of my elements…" What the teenage Overlord recalled made him pause and scowl, something the star warrior doesn't notice as he is busy focused on Whispy.

"Well if you've dealt with this before, can you tell me what needs to be done to get your power back?" Kirby casually asks.

"Plunging my sword into Whispy's cranium should allow me to draw the elemental power out harmlessly, but we're going to have to weaken him first." Riku explains to the star warrior.

"That sounds easy. Even with a power-up, Whispy should go down quickly. Lets go!" Kirby enthusiastically leaps at Whispy, much to Riku's slight annoyance.

"_Darn it Kirby, we need to come up with a strategy before charging into battle."_ Riku thinks as a wave of crawling vines moves along the ground and forces him to leap and hover in the air to avoid getting hit.

The star warrior release air from his mouth and aims his staff at Whispy, hitting him with a continuous amount of damage from an arc of beam energy as the tree shakes its glowing body and begins to cultivate large spiky apples from his branches to try and strike Kirby.

Though the threat of them touching his body has increased, the general pattern of attack is mostly the same from Whispy, and Kirby is thus able to move himself backwards through the air after attacking the tree with his beams. The star warrior ends up dodging the apples with this simple move, and proceeds to stand still with the beam staff in front of his body as energy starts to charge in the jeweled tip.

However, while Kirby is preparing this attack Whispy shakes the bottom of its trunk around and summons an assortment of roots shaped into lanky hands from around the star warrior's body. The intention behind this attack was to grab and bury Kirby in the ground, but Riku is quick to prevent this from happening by snapping out of his brief period of concern for Kirby's well-being and leaping forward to cut the roots down at the 'wrists' with one mid-air circular slash.

Afterwards Kirby is able to fire a swirling sphere of blue beam energy at Whispy, striking him straight below the mouth with an explosion roughly the same size as the sphere occurring afterwards and dealing a considerate amount of damage to the tree as evidenced by the light wince of his right eyelid. As Riku lands beside the star warrior, he holds his sword off to the side and says to him "Geez Kirby, be careful, you almost got hit there."

"There was no risk, I knew you had my back." Kirby casually says with a smile, to which Riku responds with his mouth agape "How can you trust me so easily?!"

However, Kirby didn't answer the question, for Whispy quickly sent out another wave of vines that the star warrior was forced to leap over. While in mid-air though, Kirby charges his staff again, the power from his body slowing his descent until he launches another shot straight into Whispy's body. This attack creates a more powerful explosion across the tree's body, signifying his defeat already.

Riku, after landing from his leap away from Whispy's last attack, blinks twice at the tree and says "That's it? Huh, didn't expect such an easy fight, honestly…"

The teenage Overlord quickly leaps at Whispy and plunges his sword into the tree's cranium, drawing in the Grass element from within as trails of dark green energy spiral around both of his blades for a few seconds. Once the process of extracting the element has finished, Riku leaps back, only to be hit with a sudden transformation as his body quickly becomes green and a hat made up of striped light-green leaves appears atop his head. Riku lands on the ground and feels the hat, his eyes blinking a couple times in confusion before he lowers his stubby hands and says quietly to himself "What just happened?"

As Kirby finally lands on the ground from his last attack and looks at Riku, he waves his right hand and says with a smile "Huh, that's an interesting power-up hat. What would this be, Leaf?"

Riku blankly stares at the star warrior and says to him "Huh? You haven't seen this power before? I could of sworn you used it…"

Kirby tilts his head in confusion and responds to Riku's question with "Nope, never seen this ability before in my life. Got to admit though, it does look rather interesting."

"Yeah, well I'd rather stick to the sword until this power-up is needed…" Riku, after a moment of concentration and a snide remark, reverts to having the Sword power-up, though the Leaf one was now a permanent part of his arsenal that he could call upon at any given time.

After reverting to his base form, Riku and Kirby both look at Whispy and see a hollow white look in his eyes, signifying that the tree was knocked unconscious after using the Grass element to power himself up. With a concerned tone of voice, the teenage Overlord asks "Will he be ok?"

Kirby responds with nonchalant bluntness "Of course he will! I've beaten him enough times by now to know that Whispy will always recover and be ready for another battle at the start of my next adventure!"

"I guess so…" Riku says in a quiet tone of voice as Kirby stands up and waves towards the sky to summon the Warp Star since their job here in Green Greens now done and over with.

"So, I think we should take a trip to the Ripple Field next. Its an underwater area, so perhaps you'll find your Water element there!" Kirby then leaps onto the Warp Star enthusiastically, with Riku agreeing with the star warrior's logic as he nods his head and leaps onto the starry ride. After a second of charging up, the Warp Star launches into the sky, ready to travel to the next destination…

_Next Time: Acro and Kracko_


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3: Seas and Skies**

With the Warp Star flying through the clear skies of Dream Land, Kirby observed the landscape wide and far and tried to find Ripple Field, the next destination on his journey to help his new friend Riku reclaim his elemental powers. Though there were a couple areas with water surrounding a specific set of land masses, Kirby listed them off as different locations than the one he sought, only changing his focused glare into a widened smiling expression once he notices the waters around Ripple Field coming up below.

Pointing at the ground to direct Riku's vision towards the rippling tides, the star warrior said "Alright, try and brace yourself for impact this time around. Sticking this landing should be a piece of cake if you do!"

With Kirby once again expressing an intense amount of enthusiasm in contrast to the boy's timid concern, the teenage Overlord grasped his stubby hands around the Warp Star as tightly as he could while thinking to himself _"I swear if I end up with my face in the dirt again…" _

The Warp Star moves towards a particular patch of tropical grass that lies very close to the rippling sea, crashing down in a manner very similar to the way it did in Green Greens. Kirby sticks a perfect landing just like before, but while Riku isn't flung against the ground he ended up holding on for too long and ended up getting caught in the Warp Star's destruction and was sent flying on ahead while the star warrior blinks twice in surprise. The teenage Overlord smacks face first against a nearby palm tree with so much force that if he was still a human his head would have suffered a concussion in the process of breaking the tree apart.

As it stands now though, Riku's girth bends the palm tree forward. A few seconds are spent suspended in place as the teenage Overlord groans and opens his eyelids, while in his mind he thinks _"Well, this somehow doesn't hurt as much as it the last failed landing…" _

The palm tree creaks, the pressure placed on the center of its body fading away as a panicking Riku widens his eyes and finds himself helpless to do anything as the tree launches him through the air. With his body spinning around as he flies, the teenage Overlord quickly thinks in a panicked tone _"Either I'm really out of my element, or this is karmic punishment for what I've done in the past. Whatever the case, it would really suck if there was a wall behind me!"_

Thankfully unaware of how cruel the ways of karma was as his body hurtled towards a wall, Riku was only three seconds away from colliding with the wall that stood behind a small pool of water carrying a single shark when Kirby leaped into the air with a blue bandana now wrapped around his head and opened his mouth to suck the boy his way. But instead of the vacuum pulling Riku inside of the star warrior's body, he is instead guided to his right hand, and after gripping the back of the boy's red body as tightly as possible he suspends himself in place mid-air above the pool and lightly tosses Riku safely onto his feet on the ground diagonally below him.

Kirby then quickly puffs his body up to hover over Riku's body and land in front of him, where he then turns and faces the boy with a smile on his face before saying "Well, can't exactly say that I expected that to happen."

The star warrior laughs nervously while rubbing the back of his head, in a way apologizing for what happened after the Warp Star landed. Riku's eyes are wide, not simply because of what just happened, but also because of how quickly Kirby handled that whole matter. With his right hand pointed at the bandana on Kirby's head the boy asked frantically "Hey, where did you get that from? What happened to your Beam power-up?"

The star warrior regained his enthusiastic demeanor and quickly responded to Riku's two questions in a single sentence with "Well I discarded Beam and quickly sucked in a Bun that happened to be nearby so I could acquire Throw and save your life."

But with the power having served its purpose, Kirby discards it in the form of a single star that leaps up and down along the tropical grass, and after it vanishes the two eared dog-like creature known as a Bun is brought back to life a fair distance away from the two heroes. Riku, nodding his head as a means of bowing in an appreciative manner, says to Kirby "Thank you for saving me! I'm sorry that I can't stick a landing after the Warp Star crashes as easily as you can Kirby!"

Kirby chuckles and says to Riku "Oh don't fret over it. You just haven't gotten used to the landings yet. Trust me, its taken me lots of tries to get it right."

After Kirby says this, his smile fades away slightly as he nervously chuckles and thinks back to roughly twenty times where the Warp Star's crashes have left him in some rather painful predicaments, and he quietly says to himself "Yep…Lots and lots of tries…"

Shaking off the painful memories before Riku catches on to his melancholy, Kirby waves his hand into the air and says "So, before we take a dip into the water to try and find one of your elements, I should probably grab a power-up that works underwater."

Riku asks Kirby "And which ones are those?" in a fake tone of curiosity.

"Hammer and Sword usually, but considering Bonkers is the only one who carries Hammer and he's generally a mini-boss not found in underwater areas I'll just have to settle on Sword." After Kriby says this the star warrior looks at Riku and starts slanting his eyebrows in a mischievous manner.

The teenage Overlord doesn't take long to read Kirby's intentions and he quickly takes a step back, saying with arms waving in front of his body "No Kirby! I am not someone you can just suck up and use as a power-up!"

The star warrior raises his right eyebrow in confusion and says to Riku "Huh? What are you talking about? I wasn't looking at you."

Despite the fact that the star warrior was obviously looking at the teenage Overlord, Riku doesn't question this as Kirby quickly points behind the boy with his right arm. Riku turns around and sees a small warrior with aquamarine armor walking around and a sword with a sharp point on each side of the blade casually strolling on a patch of sand away from the pool with the lone shark. Riku comments on the convenience of this by saying "Its amazing how the power-ups are so close by the areas that they will be needed the most at."

"Eh, progression is progression, no matter how convenient things end up being." Kirby casually shrugs his shoulders as he says this, but afterwards proceeds to walk over to the Sword Knight.

As the star warrior approaches, the armored figure twitches upon seeing the pink nightmare approaching him, and with his yellow eyes showing fear in its rawest form Kirby says to the knight "Hey, do you mind if-"

Before the star warrior finishes its sentence, the Sword Knight flings the dull end of his sword straight into Kirby's face, making him pause mid-sentence as the knight wastes no time in fleeing for his life in the opposite direction of the pink nightmare. Kirby pauses for a few seconds before lifting his right hand up and politely proclaiming "Thank you!"

Kirby then proceeds to widen his mouth and suck the sword in, and after a flash of light he ends up with a long green hat on his head and a sleek sword with a blue handle and little to no other unique features. As Riku sees the hat and the way the star warrior holds his sword beside his body, he momentarily freezes in place and his little heart goes into a state of shock that causes him an intense sensation of pain. The teenage Overlord looks at Kirby and for a second sees him as someone else, which causes him to think _"I thought I had worked past that trauma. Tch, what a terrible time for this to come up…" _

Kirby starts to turn around, and about halfway through the pain in Riku's chest subsides as the cheerful look in the star warrior's eyes reminds the boy that the pink puffball is not comparable to the other hero appearance-wise and this line of thought helps subdue his trauma. With his demeanor back to normal, the teenage Overlord asks the star warrior "So what was up with the Sword Knight's reaction?"

"I think he was an enemy I sucked up in the past. It seems he was scarred by the experience…Not my intention I assure you, so I hope I can find that guy later and apologize to him." Kirby glances behind his right shoulder as he speaks, holding the blade in his opposite hand for the time being before switching it off and pointing it towards the vast sea on ahead and saying with bravado "Alright, lets go exploring the sea!"

Riku turns towards the rippling sea and says to Kirby with his eyes widened and his right hand quickly rising up to smack his forehead "…You know what I just realized?"

The star warrior blinks twice and says to the boy "Huh? What is it?"

"I usually rely on a combination of Water and Air to allow for fluid movement underwater. Without either of them at my dispersal…Well…" Riku is hesitant to admit the truth to Kirby, but after a prolonged sigh he comes right out and says "…I can't swim."

Kirby blinks once and says to Riku nonchalantly "Oh, that's it? Well no need to worry, there's a simple solution to that!"

The star warrior walks up to the teenage Overlord and pats him on the back, keeping his hand attached there as he walks alongside him towards the edge of the island while Riku looks at Kirby with a stare of utter confusion and partial concern. Once the two heroes were at the edge, Kirby wastes no time in gently smacking Riku right into the body of water, the boy panicking as he falls in. However, upon dropping into the sea, the teenage Overlord opens his eyelids and is surprised by the fact that he is able to take a nice clean look at the pristine coral and glistening underwater atmosphere.

After a couple of seconds, Riku also realizes that he is able to breathe as though he was on land. It doesn't take long for him to notice that he is wearing a set of curved plastic goggles and had a plastic snorkel that somehow didn't take in water whenever he breathed in. As he waddled to keep himself afloat in the middle of the sea, Riku is joined moments later by Kirby, who also mysterious gained goggles and a plastic snorkel. He lost his hat, but kept the sword. Pointing the sword towards the beautiful sea, Kirby motions his arms around in circles to show Riku how to swim in his new body, demonstrating things in a swift and efficient manner before heading on his way.

Riku had many questions on his mind at that moment, but the unfortunate thing about being underwater is that he couldn't say any of them without exposing his innards to the salty sea. For now, the teenage Overlord could only summon his sword and think _"…This world is really bizarre" _before he follows Kirby's example and slowly swims after him.

Once again, the trip is not disturbed by a single enemy. There were a few red fish swimming around with goggles on their faces, but they were kind creatures that didn't need to be disturbed. Riku found the lack of enemies to be perplexing, but alas was unable to bring it up to Kirby as the two of them swam through the clear ocean depths. It was certainly nice that the sun was out, for the glistening rays help the heroes see what is up ahead without any concerns. Eventually though the islands above gain a slant of rock underneath the forces the heroes to head downward into a darker cavern, though some light still remained to prevent them from going into the area blind.

As they swim downward, Kirby notices a dark-blue glow coming up ahead and points towards it with his sword while looking over at Riku. As he moves his arms around and goes on ahead he nods at Kirby while thinking to himself _"That has to be one of my elements…" _

Kirby and Riku get closer and closer to the glowing light, but before they make it in time a grey and white killer whale with white eyes and black pupils comes out of nowhere and chomps down on the orb after mistaking it for a piece of food. The star warrior and the teenage Overlord both flinch in shock of the whale's sudden appearance, but Riku expresses more concern over the matter then Kirby does.

The whale known as Acro suddenly begins to twitch with one eye widening as its sharp teeth begin to release a dark blue glow from the orb it swallowed. Seconds later the back fin begins to lengthen and becomes as sharp and sleek as a blade while the tail gains a third segment that glows yellow like the antenna of an angler fish yet resembles a small fin. The grey on the whale becomes dark-blue and allows the creature to blend in better with the environment, while the eyes curl back and become a hollow dark red. The fangs become sharper and a second row is grown behind the first that are the same size as the first ones were before growing.

With a couple snaps of its jaws at the prey floating in front of it, the now aggressive Acro quickly swims at the two heroes with a great deal of fluidness, its body streaking through the sea like a guided torpedo as the two heroes are forced to kick themselves in opposite directions to avoid the chomp of the killer whale. The predator was more of a threat than it was before, which doesn't exactly bode well for the heroes seeing as their abilities are more suited for close-combat, something they'd be wise to avoid seeing how lethal the creature's bite would be.

However, there was another way to fight that didn't require the swords to strike the skin of the beast. Kirby looks towards the ceiling and with a stroke of ingenuity he swims up and cuts at it with the tip of his blade. Riku, not realizing the star warrior's intentions, is kept in the line of sight of the aggressive Acro as the creature turns around and uses its newly gained night vision to see the teenage Overlord through the water. With its mouth agape, the whale launches itself at the boy while spiraling itself around to increase its speed, its body being engulfed in a whirlpool of water that sucks in all around as it rapidly approaches the nearly defenseless boy.

Before Acro can get its teeth on the boy, Kirby manages to cut apart enough of the rocky ceiling in order to cause a large chunk to drop down on top of the killer whale's head, hitting it with enough force to stop its movements right then and there. Acro's widened mouth stands inches away from chomping through Riku's tiny body, and the boy floats in place with his eyes stiff with fear and his body trembling. He was seconds away from death, and with the water working against his ability to swing his sword and the Leaf power-up incapable of working underwater Riku was utterly defenseless against this foe.

This close encounter with death resonated heavily within the teenage Overlord's mind, making him think for a good few seconds about what it felt like to not be at full power. What he was without the elements was a normal creature incapable of fighting even the weakest of enemies, and if it wasn't for Kirby's existence here there would be no doubt that Riku would surely have perished. With this in mind, Riku realized that perhaps now would be a good time to learn how to fight without his elemental powers, even going as far as to tell himself in his head not to use any powers he reclaims until it was necessary to leave the world as a means of testing his own determination in regards to fighting like a normal person.

Riku is then reminded of the fact that he needs to reacquire his Water power in spite of his earlier thoughts thanks to Kirby pointing his sword at Acro. The teenage Overlord then quickly puts his sword into Acro's head and works to re-absorb his Water element, pulling the blade out with no scars present on the killer whale's head as the creature reverts back to its original appearance. Riku suppresses the change to his body this time, keeping his sword out through sheer force of will. Acro floats in place with white eyes, but he was only unconscious for the time being.

With this element reclaimed, Riku and Kirby quickly swam their way out of rippling waters, arriving back on the island they landed on before and losing their goggles and snorkels in the process. Kirby shakes off the water on his body and then looks at the boy, saying to him with a puzzled expression "Huh? You didn't transform this time?"

Riku says to the star warrior "I chose not to. Since I knew a transformation was coming, I was able to stop it from happening."

"Oh, well at least you did get your powers back. For a second there, I thought maybe the process had failed despite Acro returning to normal." Kirby says in turn.

"No need to worry about failure on that end. This method of mine is sure to work no matter what happens." Riku says with absolute confidence.

"Is that so? Alright, well that's good to hear!" Kirby replies enthusiastically as he waves up towards the sky to call down the Warp Star, and as the ride descends from the sky he says to Riku "Lets do a two-for-one, huh?"

"What do you mean by that Kirby?" Riku asks in a puzzled tone of voice.

"I mean we are going to get two of your elemental powers back instead of just one." Kirby says as he leaps onto the star.

"…But why did you use that specific terminology? Wouldn't it have made more sense to say 'Lets quickly get one right after the other?'" Riku asks in a completely serious tone of voice. Once again though, the star warrior ignores his question, causing the teenage Overlord to sigh and just submit to the fact that he won't get any answer from Kirby. Thus, the boy leaps onto the Warp Star and latches onto it tightly after dispelling his sword.

Kirby then launches the star up towards the clouds in the sky, saying as loud as he can to Riku "WE'RE HEADING TO THE BUBBLY CLOUDS, I THINK WE MIGHT FIND TWO OF YOUR ELEMENTS THERE!"

"OK!" Riku responds loudly as the Warp Star breaks through the bottom layer of clouds and enters a very sunny domain where the clouds were filled with gummy bubbles and looked a lot like marshmallows. There were pillars of gold and canes of peppermint scattered around the air, making this place look like a comfortable paradise for anyone who could ascend to here. Once again, there were no enemies around, but this time Riku wasn't disturbed by this since it made the place look much better on the eyes.

Kirby looks around as the Warp Star stays suspended in place for a few seconds, trying to find a light similar to the one the two of them had seen underwater. From afar, the star warrior sees a shimmering yellow light buried atop a lone cloud in the distance, and points to it while saying to Riku "Look over there! I think I see another one of your powers!"

The teenage Overlords looks in the direction that Kirby is pointing towards and says with his eyelids squinting "Not just one…I sense two elements over there!" Riku was surprised by the fact that he could sense the elements, but it didn't take him long to piece together how reclaiming two elements must have re-enabled his ability to sense elemental energy. This kind of went against his whole 'I should try and fight like a normal human with a sword' talk earlier, but its not like Riku could shut off that particular ability of his.

Whatever the case, Kirby guided the Warp Star towards the yellow light and let it crash down gently, and this time Riku is dropped on the ground where the star landed instead of being sent flying like the other two times before this moment. Once on the cloud, Riku looks on ahead and sees a white glimmer blended in with the clouds. Electricity and Wind were represented by the two orbs in the ground, though in Kirby's world they would represent the Spark and Tornado powers respectively.

Sensing nothing amiss in the air, Riku begins to step forward to claim his two powers, only a figure to emerge underneath the elements in a matter of seconds. It was a cloud shaped creature with many spikes surrounding its body and a single glistening eye that stares down at Kirby and Riku. Annoyed at yet another boss appearing to get in their way, the teenage Overlord scowls and says in a raised voice "You have GOT to be kidding me?! Now Kracko is here?!"

Kirby, nonchalant as always, says to the boy "Well to be fair, this is his domain" before turning to Kracko and nonetheless asking "But still, it is weird that you would show up at this exact location Kracko."

Kracko says in a distorted, static-y tone of voice "My presence here makes sense Kirby, King Dedede sent me here to seek out these strange orbs."

Kirby is surprised by Kracko's response, while Riku slaps the front of his face and says with a groan "Oh sweet merciful lord…"

The star warrior, on the other hand, takes this news in stride and asks "Why does Dedede want the orbs?"

Kracko fizzles with electricity and says to Kirby "The King had a black orb fall into his castle just a few hours ago, and after becoming intrigued by it he sent out a request to have myself and a few others seek out any other orbs that might have fallen onto Dream Land. And as luck would have it, I just happened to come across two."

"_A black orb?"_ Riku thinks to himself, his eyes widening in a panic as he draws his stubby arm away from his face and continues to think with his teeth partially grit _"Not again…King Dedede is in possession of my darkness element!" _

But instead of letting his panic break through to his natural expression, Riku notices something crucial in Kracko's sentence that assures him that Dedede hasn't taken the power of darkness into his body yet. However, Kracko having two orbs in his possession did not make the teenage Overlord feel comfortable, even though Kirby still maintained a nonchalant air about him as he looked at the cloud and said "Well sorry Kracko, but my friend here needs those two orbs more than Dedede does. Can you just hand them over peacefully?"

"No can do, Kirby." Kracko firmly says, but with his eyebrow raised he proceeds to mention "But I do find it curious that you want these orbs for your friend. Just what secrets do they hold?"

Kracko uses electricity to grab onto the two orbs, pulling them in front of his body as he says to the heroes "I'm sure the King will not mind if I use these orbs for myself. Plus, a test of what they are capable of would surely prove beneficial…"

Without hesitation, Kracko takes both orbs into his body, with Riku quickly drawing his sword and pointing it at the cloud creature while thinking to himself _"What will happen to someone who absorbs two elements at the same time?"_

Kracko freezes in place and his eye widens as though he was experiencing incredible pain, but then a field of electricity followed by a binding cloud of fog surrounds the cloud monstrosity and covers his appearance completely. After a few seconds the electricity bursts and disperses the fog as the electricity itself fades away, and Kracko reveals himself in his new form. The creature had grown a body of sorts that still retained the rounded curves of his normal cloud self yet was now shaped like a cone that was attached to a single flat cloud surrounded by pulsating electrical spikes. Atop the cone body was a head that looked like Kracko's original body but with a smaller size and a second eye having now grown alongside the first. Kracko also had a cloth green sleeveless vest wrapped around his body and a single thunderbolt grasped in his newly grown right hand.

"This feels…strange…" Kracko says in a more clearly spoken tone of voice than before, his eyes focusing directly on the hands that have grown out of his new body as he says in a joyous tone "And at the same time…it feels so invigorating…"

Kracko raises his arms into the air, but as he does so he unwittingly causes the clouds in the sky to move and block the sun. The clouds also turn a slight shade of grey, which causes the cloud monstrosity to raises his eyebrows and say in an intrigued tone of voice "Interesting…So those orbs carried within them the raw essence of the elements for Electricity and the very Skies themselves…"

Kracko looks down upon the red Kirby whose name he hadn't yet identified and said to him "And I sense that you hold within you two elements of your own. These are your powers, yes? I am quite interested to know just where you managed to acquire such an array of powers."

"Well I'm not telling you." Riku firmly states in response to Kracko's desire for knowledge.

Kracko, rubbing his chin with his right hand in such a way that he has to pause and enjoy this sensation, goes on to say to the red Kirby "Such a shame. I feel these orbs will be wasted on the King, so perhaps it would be for the best if I absorb the other elemental powers and learn the truth behind how you came to acquire them."

"So what, do you want to fight me for my two elements?" Riku asks, keeping his sword grasped in his stubby hand as tightly as he can manage as he stares straight at Kracko.

"Not at all, actually. I feel that even in my current state I would not be able to defeat you both. For my own safety, I shall face the two of you another time, perhaps once I have tipped the scale of elemental powers in my favor…" With a fond wave of his right hand, Kracko is quick to fly off away from where the heroes currently stand, leaving them both dumbfounded for quite a good few seconds.

"I-I…Ok, what just happened here?" Kirby, for once in his life, is left completely confused and actually tilts his head to better scratch it with his left hand.

Riku, with his right hand back to being applied to his face after he dispels his sword, says to the star warrior "While I'm trying to wrap my head around all of this, there's a couple of important things I got from what just happened…One, Kracko didn't go insane like Whispy and Acro did because he absorbed two elements instead of one. Two, he appears to be much more intelligent and savvy then he was before. Third and most importantly, he can detect my elements, which combined with the last thing I mentioned, means things have really, REALLY just gone downhill for the two of us."

"So what you're saying is that Kracko is going to seek out the remaining elements to try and become strong enough to take us both out and steal your two elements?" Kirby sums up Riku's explanation in terms he understands, and the teenage Overlord nods his head in response.

"Well just how many elements do we have left to find?" Kirby asks, trying to keep a calm air despite how worried Riku looked.

The boy said to the star warrior "Fire, Earth, Ice, Light and Dark…We know King Dedede has Dark now thanks to what Kracko said, and I don't think Kracko is going to make a move against Dedede until he has enough elements in his possession so we don't need to storm Castle Dedede just yet. With Wind and Electricity under his belt, I think it would be for the best if I reacquire Earth next to counteract the two elements that Kracko has right now."

Kirby rubs his chin and says "But if Kracko goes for Ice while we go for Earth, then won't he counteract your attempt to counteract him?"

While the star warrior brings up a rather good point, Riku merely says in a flustered tone of voice "Don't bring Pokemon weaknesses into this Kirby. Besides, if it comes down to that, then I'll just reacquire Fire and counteract his counteracting of my counteracting."

"…What?" Kirby says, Riku's mess of a sentence making little sense to him as he tilts his head in confusion.

The teenage Overlord shakes his head and says "The way things are now, Kracko's two elements beat my two elements. We have to look at this whole matter like it is a game of Rock-Paper-Scissors, so its important that we get the upper hand on Kracko as soon as possible."

"And how is a Rock-Paper-Scissors comparison better than a Pokemon reference?" Kirby points out with a nonchalant attitude.

Riku puts on a flustered expression and says to Kirby with a wave of his hand "N-Never mind, just summon the Warp Star so we can head off to whatever desert area the Earth element might lie in."

The star warrior nods his head and waves towards the sky to summon the Warp Star, and both heroes quickly get on it and fly away from the Bubbly Clouds to head back down to Dream Land. However, what they didn't realize is that Kracko did not quickly descend through the clouds, but instead chose to remain afloat below the cloud that the two heroes stood on while using his newly enhanced control over the clouds to hear their conversation from below.

Rubbing his fingers together to spark electricity within then, Kracko says to himself as he begins to rubs his chin "Fascinating…So the remaining elements lie within environments similar to the element itself. Hmmm, I could follow the two to where the Earth element lies and ruin their entire plan by snatching it for myself, but there is a better way to go about this that doesn't run the risk of me being forced into a confrontation with the two heroes…" With plans brewing in his wiser mind, Kracko descends into Dream Land.

_Next Time: …So why exactly is this story called "The Return of Dark Matter"?_


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4: The Race to Stop Kracko**

The Warp Star tears a hole through the cloudy sky, with Riku barely managing to hang on for his dear life as his body wiggles back and forth through the air. Kirby looks towards the ground and tries to find the mountain area of Dream Land, stating with absolute urgency in his voice for once "We are heading off to the Yogurt Yard Riku! Your Earth element should be somewhere in that area, right?"

After he asks that question, Riku squints his eyelids through the turbulence and exclaims as he looks towards a rough mountain range in the distance "Yeah! The Earth element is buried deep within the mountain! We need to find a cave entrance to get it quickly!"

"Alright, I'll try to get as close to one as a possibly can!" Kirby says as he slows down the pace of the Warp Star and levels it above the ground, traveling through the mountain range at a high speed that leaves a powerful trail of stars in its wake. However, as the two heroes try and move closer to the Earth element orb, they are suddenly met with a powerful explosion to the right that pushes their ride aside. Kirby flinches in surprise while Riku is almost shunted from the Warp Star, and this action leaves the star warrior as the only one able to look on ahead.

One the ground were two little, smiling figures with blue caps and bombs in their limbless hands. A couple bombs are tossed at the heroes, forcing Kirby to exclaim in the midst of the explosions that surround his ride "We're going have to land! I can't dodge these bombs forever!"

As he says this, two more bombs create explosions above and to the right of the Warp Star, roughing it up to the point that it begins to glow a pale red. Riku nods his head in agreement as he grasps the Warp Star as tightly as possible, and Kirby forces his ride to land upon the ground in a starry explosion only a second later. Riku manages to stick the landing with a mighty skid, and alongside the star warrior the two manage to kick into the Poppy Bros. that launched bombs their way. The two Poppy Bros. are knocked into the air and explode thanks to the lit bombs in their hands.

Kirby and Riku nod at each other after turning their heads, with the star warrior commenting on the boy's landing with an excited "Nicely done, you got the hang of this rather quickly!"

"Thanks for the compliment, but I think I only stuck that landing because I do better under pressure sometimes…It is a weird thing, I know, but-" Riku is interrupted mid-sentence by a strange and mighty tremor coming from the distance that reverberated through the entire mountain and reached where the two heroes currently stood.

"W-What the heck? Don't tell me someone already got the Earth element before us?" Riku comments as the ground's vibrations grow stronger and stronger.

In the distance, the two heroes watch as a large group of monsters of various shapes and sizes start to roam closer and closer with each passing second. There were Poppy Bros., Waddle Doos, Buns, Stony's, Kibble's and many more enemies. There were even some usually underwater enemies flopping at the same speed as the other monsters, surprisingly. Eventually this mighty crowd halts a mere ten feet away from Kirby and Riku, causing the teenage Overlord to look up as he sees that the monsters have built up into the shape of a mighty conglomerate of a wall.

"Holy moley…Where did all of these enemies come from all of a sudden?" Riku says in a tone of frightened disbelief as his pupils shrink down to the shape of pinholes.

The enemies all bicker amongst one another, though a lot of their comments are directed mostly towards Kirby himself. Eventually a single Waddle Doo comes out from the wall of enemies as the rest go silent, and with its stubby right hand pointed at Kirby it declares "How dare you start an adventure so unexpectedly like this!"

The Waddle Doo was posh in his behavior, but spoke in a loud accusing voice towards the star warrior. Kirby point at himself in confusion, saying to the Waddle Doo in turn as the wall of enemies grumbles loudly at the star warrior "Huh? What are you talking about?"

"We've already heard that you defeated Whispy Woods and Acro! That's two whole areas of Dream Land you went through without any opposition from any of us! That is unacceptable Kirby, do you not care about our feelings towards this matter?!" After the Waddle Doo says this, a bunch of enemies repeat his last words without so much as any variation beyond their tone of voice.

"Well sorry about this guys…This adventure kind of came out of the blue. Besides, usually you guys are already out and about whenever I go on an adventure because Dedede or someone else is causing trouble for Dream Land. I think this is the first time that I've been the one to start an adventure, now that I think about it." Kirby apologizes to the enemies and laughs at how silly everything he just said sounded while Riku starts to stop panicking and looks at the star warrior with one eyebrow raised in confusion towards his casual behavior towards the monsters.

The Waddle Doo slants his single eyebrow and hums while looking at Kirby, saying after a couple moments "Fine Kirby, we can forgive you just this once. But we are going to make Yogurt Yard a nightmare for you to traverse as punishment."

"Wait, we talking Squeak Squad or Super Star Ultra True Arena level difficulty here?" Kirby once again uses rather interesting words as he speaks, which causes Riku to tilt his head in confusion as he looks at the star warrior.

The Waddle Doo firmly states "Mass Attack Hard Mode Perfect Run" in a very serious tone of voice, which causes Kirby to let loose a little sweat drop as he closes his eyelids and says in a nervous tone of voice "T-That tough, huh?"

Turning away from the star warrior, the Waddle Doo waves at the wall of enemies and says to Kirby "Yes, THAT tough. We shall see each other soon, Kirby."

The ground trembles again as the wall of enemies quickly dismantles itself and spreads themselves across all of Yogurt Yard, leaving Riku looking at Kirby in utter confusion once more as he proclaims "Why did none of those enemies attack us?!"

Kirby, with sword swung beside his body, says to the boy as he smiles and looks on ahead "Most of the enemies in Dream Land are rather polite, they won't attack me unless I'm on an adventure. Its weird, I know, but they seem to have no problem with the way things go around here."

Turning his head away from Kirby to the point that only his right eye is glancing his way as he draws his own sword, Riku says to the star warrior "Ok…But we really don't have time to deal with every single enemy that crosses our path. Not while Kracko and Dedede are both after the other elements."

"I know that Riku. But we might have to start fighting mini-bosses now, and they like to trap us in unbreakable box shaped arenas until we defeat them." Kirby once again uses a strange choice of words in his sentence, and while Riku leaves his mouth agape as though ready to finally comment on how silly that all is he stops himself midway with a sigh and says in a quiet whisper "You know what…Never mind…"

Enthusiastically pointing his sword at the horizon, Riku proclaims "Lets get a move on!"

The two heroes then dash forward across the rocky mountaintops, ascending and descending across various slants as they try to seek out the cavern closest to where the Earth element orb lies. According to Riku, the orb hasn't shifted positions at all, which means Kracko didn't grab it while they were dealing with the wall of enemies. In fact, the living cloud wasn't anywhere to be found, a fact that didn't surprise the teenage Overlord considering his earlier assumptions about what Kracko would do. This very fact made Riku feel relieved as he dashed through Yogurt Yard and used his blade to take down any enemies that crossed his path.

Despite the Waddle Doo's earlier claim, the area wasn't that hard to traverse, all things considered. After Kirby discards Sword and sucks in a one-eyed wheel to gain a red backwards cap, the star warrior is quick to say to Riku "Yeah, I figured the Waddle Doo was bluffing on the difficulty of this mountain segment. There is now way he could even make it as difficult as 100%'ing Dream Land 3, let alone the extreme he wanted to make it."

Riku sighs against at Kirby's strange use of words, and after cutting down two Poppy Bros. the two heroes find themselves face to face with a cavern entrance buried into the side of a dark grey mountain face, and after the star warrior asks if the Earth element is inside the teenage Overlord nods his head. But before the two could enter the cavern, a series of sparkles appears in the sky, and from it emerges a creature larger than the others that the two heroes have come across so far.

It was a gorilla-like creature with purple armor and a giant wooden hammer grasped in its right hand. "Hey! Bonkers! What a pleasure it is to see you!" Kirby says to the gorilla, who lurches over and holds his hammer over his shoulder as he looks at the star warrior through the shade cast by his helmet.

"Kirby, I will defeat you." The lovable lug says after letting out a primal sounding grunt. "And this time, I bring friends."

Another series of sparkles appears off to the left of the heroes, and this time a gigantic insect with large pincers and a beetles' shell lands on the ground. With a snap of its pincers, Bugzzy says in a distorted buzzing voice "Hello again, Kirby."

The third mini-boss to appear is a gigantic Poppy Bros. with more curled yellow shoes and an even bigger grin on his face. The Poppy Bros. Sr. doesn't take an antagonistic tone as it says to Kirby "Hey Kirby, how's it going?"

The final mini-boss to appear is a giant clock whose eyebrows and mustache represent the hands on its body. With its lovable red nose twitching in place, Mr. Tick Tock lets out a ring on its bells and says to Kirby "Your TIME is up, Kirby!"

After Riku groans at the last mini-boss' terrible pun and plants his left hand into his face, Kirby looks around at all four foes and says to Bonkers in a delighted tone of voice "Aw Bonkers, you shouldn't have set up this reunion."

"It is a reunion of pain, Kirby. The four of us will beat you." Bonkers says in a firm tone of voice as he shakes his hammer slightly in his grasp.

"Can we at least make this quick? We are kind of in a rush here. Maybe you didn't hear, but Kracko kind of got his hands on a couple of elemental orbs and we need to get the one in this cave to stop him." Kirby, for literally no good reason, explains the reasoning behind why he was here with Riku, which causes the boy to freak and look at the star warrior with widened eyes before he proclaims "KIRBY!"

Kirby turns to face the boy and says in an oblivious tone of voice "What?"

"If you have to strike up a conversation with the ENEMY, then don't tell them what we are up to!" Riku felt ridiculous about the fact that he had to even say such a thing to Kirby.

Kirby shrugs at the boy's remark, saying in turn "What? Its not like they will really use the information to their advantage. Besides, while the box is up, its not like Kracko can enter the cavern while we are fighting."

The teenage Overlord didn't really see a point in the star warrior telling him that second sentence, especially since he figured that out on his own, and after a moment Riku sighed once more and flattened his left hand along his face while whispering "The sooner I get this over with, the better…"

Bonkers responds to Kirby's earlier words with "Yeah, we heard what that traitor Kracko did."

Riku, in a flustered tone of voice, glares at Bonkers and exclaims "How could you have heard about that so quickly?!"

"News travels fast in Dream Land." Was the simple response Bonkers gave to the red Kirby whose identity he did not know. "That is why we are here. To claim the element orb for ourselves so we can drag that traitor back to our King to receive a proper punishment."

"I don't think you guys want anything to do with these element orbs. Anyone who grabs just one turns into a mindless beast." Riku calmly points out to the four mini-bosses.

"We heard. That's why Bonkers will receive the stone, since he has the least amount of mind to lose out of all four of us." Bugzzy says in a flat-out serious tone of voice to the mysterious red Kirby.

It takes a few seconds, but Bonkers turns to Bugzzy and exclaims in an insulted tone of voice "HEY!"

Bugzzy responds honestly with "Bonkers, I meant that in a good way. Your low intelligence will make it easier for us to deal with that traitor."

"Aw, thanks Bugzzy." Bonkers says with a curled smile on his face, but only a second later the gorilla looks at Kirby with a serious expression as he twirls his hammer and says "Sorry Kirby, but the four of us are going to be entering that cavern."

"Alright then, if you insist." Kirby says with a smile on his face.

Tilting his head slightly towards Riku, the star warrior whispers "I'll take Bugzzy and Bonkers, you take the other two" to which the boy nods his in agreement and swiftly turns himself around to face Poppy Bros. Sr. and Mr. Tick Tock.

Kirby leaps into the air and transforms into a pink wheel, landing and rolling himself along the rocky ground towards Bonkers as the armored gorilla raises its hammer ready to swing down onto the star warrior. Kirby moves at such speeds though that the lumbering creature is unable to perform its swing in time and the wheeled star warrior is able to roll right through his feet and trip him up, causing him to land chin first against the ground, though the hammer manages to stay in his grasp all the same. Kirby then skids along the ground and quickly leaps backwards, changing directions mid-jump and landing on poor Bonkers back in the process.

Kirby then uses the back of Bonkers' helmet to launch himself into the air and send himself towards Bugzzy. The pincers of the insect clamp together twice as he prepares himself for Kirby's descent. The star warrior cannot stop himself mid-air, a fact that makes Bugzzy grin as he clamps his pincers down on both sides of Kirby's Wheelie form and forces himself back into his normal state with a surprise look in his eyes. Bugzzy then lurches his head up and jumps backwards, slamming Kirby head first against the ground with a powerful suplex.

After the full impact of the suplex maneuver has been unleashed upon Kirby, Bugzzy releases his pincers and let physics take over as Kirby is launched into the air and the insect uses a couple flaps of his wings to position himself onto his feet once more while Bonkers gets up behind him. Kirby plops down against the ground a second later, feeling a little pain inside of his tiny body as he pushes himself onto his feet and says without any antagonism "Hey, nice catch there Bugzzy!"

The insect, staying entirely focused on the battle, doesn't waste time with small talk against Kirby as he pounds his fists together in front of his chest and opens his shell, flapping his wings at a high speed as he lifts himself off the ground and charges straight at the star warrior. Kirby leaps into the air to dodge Bugzzy's charge, and as the insect goes underneath him he turns into a wheel once more and drops his weight upon the creature's body to stop his flight and press him against the ground. With wings and shell spread out enough to avoid harm, Bugzzy feels as Kirby revs up his wheel atop his body and quickly launches himself forward.

After a few seconds of rolling around at the speed of sound, Kirby rams into Bonkers once more, this time hitting him with enough force to launch him into the air, his body spinning around multiple times before gravity takes hold and drops him back first against the ground. Bonkers raises his left hand towards the air as though trying to muster the energy to get up, but instead his arm falls limp against the ground as he groans and says in a disappointed voice "Darn it…"

Kirby turns around on a dime and drives around Bonkers' fallen body to go finish off Bugzzy, only for a stray bomb from Riku's battle against Poppy Bros. Sr. to fall down in front of the star warrior's path and create an explosion strong enough to knock him out of his Wheel form and launch him into the air slowly with his eyes widened and his body now on fire. Kirby plops against the ground with a squeak coming from his body as its put out.

Bugzzy takes advantage of this explosion to charge forward like he did before, this time for certain grasping both pincers down on both sides of Kirby's body. The insect then leaps into the air with his forward momentum still kept after lowering his pincers he slams the star warrior against the ground, letting go and pushing himself back as Kirby is sent flying into the air again. However, this time the star warrior recovers mid-launch and quickly turns into a wheel, catching Bugzzy off-guard long enough for Kirby to land and ram right into him with enough force to severely damage him in his soft gut. As Kirby bounces back from the blow and lands on the ground in his normal form, Bugzzy grasps his gut and keels over onto the front of his body as his eyes widen and he holds his right hand out in front of him before he slams against the hard rocky floor.

While Kirby was busy with those two mini-bosses, Riku had swiftly dealt with the other two off-screen, because I am personally not in the mood to write another page worth of fights for two mini-bosses. As all four mini-bosses rested on the floor defeated, Bonkers lifted his head up and said wearily to Kirby "You defeat us again…Now which power-up will you take for your adventure?"

Kirby, after turning to look at Bonkers, pokes his right hand against his chin and ponders that question for a few moments before shrugging and saying to all four mini-bosses "Actually, I think I'm just going to stick with Wheel for now."

At the same time, all four mini-bosses raise their heads and say in a tone of utter surprise "WHAT?!" and then promptly explode into starry bits.

Riku, with sword kept out as he walked beside Kirby, says to the star warrior "…You are sure these guys keep coming back to life?"

"Of course. They remembered who I am, right?" Kirby reassured to the teenage Overlord.

"Fine, I guess I should stop worrying about that. Especially when there is a bigger issue on the table." Riku says, pointing his sword towards the cavern that is now open to the two of them.

The two heroes proceed onward into the cavern, which is of course barely lit thanks to the lack of sunlight pouring in. Using his element detection skills, Riku is able to guide Kirby through the enemy-less cave until the glowing sandy light of the Earth element is visible in the middle of a darkened passage.

But of course, if it was just a simple matter of picking up the element and leaving, then it wouldn't be a Kirby fan fic. The tunnel quakes from above, the ceiling being disrupted to the point that rocks are brought down in tiny chunks. A few seconds later, a large red circle with a dozen saw blades wrapped around it punches through the ceiling and the being connected to the saw blade arm drops right on top of the Earth element. It was a mechanical creature meant to look like a mole, but with a single crescent shaped eye at the front of its body. It had a second limb that was a perfect mirror of the other one, with two propellers spinning on top of its form that kept it moving through the tunnel it just dropped out of.

"Heavy Mole?!" Kirby says out of recognition towards the creature, proceeding to say in turn "Huh, honestly didn't see this coming…"

"…He landed on top of the Earth orb." Riku says, a second later letting out an annoyed sigh as he senses that the element had been absorbed into the Heavy Mole.

"Oh, did he? Well, I guess we'll have to fight him." Kirby says in a once again nonchalant manner.

With the Earth element now inside of him, the Heavy Mole begins to undergo a transformation. With the limbs shifting to the front of its body, the saw blades completely vanish as the circles crunch down into straight rectangles and fuse together, and a gigantic drill spawns in between the two rectangles. The Heavy Mole then flips around, the tip of the drill grinding against the right wall of the tunnel as the main body of the creature is slowly covered in a thin rocky shell and powerful metallic wheels grow beneath the body. Within seconds, the Heavy Mole revs up its mighty engine and quickly rides off through the tunnel away from the two heroes.

Riku quickly extends his left hand out and exclaims "Hey! Get back here!"

Kirby, not worried in the slightest about Heavy Mole's departure, watches as the boy starts to run after the Heavy Mole, which moves at a speed much faster than anything Riku was capable of at that very moment. As the teenage Overlord hears the engines of the Heavy Mole fading away, a new engine roar can be heard coming from behind, causing him to stop for a moment and looking behind him as he sees Kirby riding up to him on a Wheelie with a rider's cap atop his head. Stopping in place for just a moment, the star warrior exclaims "Get on!"

Riku quickly leaps atop Kirby's head, firmly positioning himself atop him with his sword swung beside his body as the star warrior rides onward at high speeds atop the Wheelie. The teenage Overlord asks "Where did you get this Wheelie from all of a sudden?"

"I just spawned a helper from my Wheel power-up. With it we will be able to catch up to the Heavy Mole so you can cut him down with your sword." Kirby keeps his explanation brief as he travels through the tunnel that the Heavy Mole is drilling with each passing second.

"Alright, I'll try to keep a look out for any boulders that fall from his drilling work. Just keep an eye on the path ahead." Riku states before he lifts his head up and focuses on the approaching Heavy Mole. As he does so though, he gets a particular thought in his head and looks down at Kirby, saying in a puzzled tone "Hey wait, how am I going to stick to your head whenever you-"

"Keep an eye up above Riku, this isn't the time for questions!" Kirby says in a particular serious tone of voice, and as the teenage Overlord focuses on the ceiling he notices a boulder descending and quickly cleaves it in half.

After dealing with that large bit of debris, Riku sees the rocky backside of the Heavy Mole approaching and quickly swings his sword out so the tip of the blade carves through the rocky skin of the machine. As a scratch forms along the backside of the drilling Heavy Mole, the mechanical creature increases its speed to prevent it engine from being struck, curving its direction at the same time to create an incline downward into the underground of Dream Land. Kirby descends after the Heavy Mole, the Wheelie's momentum increasing to keep up with the mighty digger as Riku miraculously sticks to the top of Kirby's helmet as if glue had been applied to his feet.

With an air current blowing against his body, Riku watches as the Heavy Mole straightens itself out and continues to dig at the same speed as before it descended. The teenage Overlord cuts down two more boulders with one slash after the other, keeping a firm focus on the previous scar he cut into the back of the Heavy Mole's rocky shell as he notices that it is slowly healing up thanks to the debris from its digging landing atop the shell and merging with it. With this in mind, Riku wastes no time in extending the reach of his sword with a single push of his body, swinging into the scar he created earlier and cutting deep enough through the metallic skin that the main part of the Heavy Mole's engine becomes vulnerable, with circuits and gears grinding within.

The Heavy Mole pushes itself to the very extreme of its capabilities to avoid taking any further damage, pushing its drill rapidly through the underground area in an attempt to escape the two heroes. "Oh no you don't!" Riku says as he folds his right arm behind his body, in turn pushing his own muscles to the limit as he focuses on the vulnerable backside of the Heavy Mole and with one widening of his eyes and a single thrust of his arm the teenage Overlord flings his sword through the air like an arrow at the engine.

The Heavy Mole doesn't get enough time to change direction and avoid the sword as it impales itself right into its engine and disrupts the most important circuitry within to the point that the mechanical creature starts to break down, with sparks flying through the innards of the creature and setting everything ablaze. Eventually the oil reserves are breeched by flames, and the Heavy Mole explodes into a battered mess of parts at the very end of its own tunnel. Kirby slows the Wheelie down to a halt, allowing Riku to leap off and do what needs to be done while the star warrior stays behind and takes off his helmet, giving the Wheelie an appreciative pat on the head for his help before sending him off back up the tunnel.

Riku looks at the wreckage of the Heavy Mole and sees the Earth element orb buried in the center of it all, along with his undamaged sword. Using his mind to control the sword, the teenage Overlord moves it towards the orb and absorbs it back into the blade, which in turn puts the element back in Riku's body thanks to the mental connection. Riku turns around and walks back over to Kirby, saying with a smile on his face "Alright, we got the Earth element back! That means we got an advantage over Kracko until he acquires the Ice element, but that won't matter once we get my Fire power back!"

Kirby smiles at the boy and his enthusiastic behavior, saying as he waves towards the sky "Then our next destination is obvious. Its time we headed off to the Vocal Volcano!" As the star warrior exclaims this, the Warp Star quickly flies through the tunnel the Heavy Mole made, and both heroes quickly leap on top of it and ride it out of this large tunnel to head off to their next destination…

_Next Time: The Flaw in the Plan_


	5. Announcement

I will not be uploading any new chapters for this particular story for the next 5-7 days because of the release of Pokemon Y. Sorry fans, but this game is just way too freaking good for me to drop!


	6. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5: Storm Above Dream Land**

Kirby's Warp Star flies at desperately high speeds through the skies of Dream Land with Riku tightly latching his arms around the starry ride to keep himself suspended in place as they travel closer and closer towards the Vocal Volcano, whose cone-shaped figure spouts magma down within the confines of it own domain every few seconds. The star warrior points towards the volcano against the momentum of his flight and says to Riku "Unless the Fire power is in another tunnel, we shouldn't have to take the long way to your power this time, right?"

The teenage Overlord, as he glares with intense focus at the volcano, responds to Kirby's inquiry with "Umm, we might actually have a problem here."

Kirby asks "What do you mean?" in a somewhat concerned manner as he slows down the Warp Star to the point that he eventually stops thirty feet in front of the lip of the volcano.

Riku tries to look across the entire Vocal Volcano domain, thinking in his mind that perhaps he wasn't looking hard enough for the elemental orb of Fire, but after a few good seconds of searching he realizes that the Fire element is nowhere to be found. After that the teenage Overlord says to Kirby "Yeah, definitely a big problem" in an unnerved tone of voice.

"Riku, I really don't want to ask this buuuuut…" Kirby takes up a reluctant tone of voice as he scratches the back of his head with his right hand and slowly turns towards the boy, asking in a serious tone of voice "Is the Fire element actually inside of the volcano?"

After a moment of pulling his head back, Riku shakes his head, and Kirby lets out a prolonged "Ooohh…"

The teenage Overlord tries to not succumb to panic, thinking as rationally as mentally possible as he closes his eyelids, sighs, and says to the star warrior "For all we know someone might have eaten the Fire element. I haven't actually been able to sense the element inside of the people who eat them, though I guess its because I am so close to the element that it doesn't really matter anyways."

"So you don't know where Kracko is right now?" Kirby asks, bringing up a rather poignant point to the table that causes Riku to creak his eyelids open and say after a moment of hesitation "…Kirby, take us into the main part of the volcano, there's something I need to check."

Kirby nods his head in compliance of Riku's wishes, and with a tap of his left hand against the Warp Star the two heroes take flight towards the volcano. The star warrior guides his ride towards a cavern in the volcano that leads into a chamber with flowing molten lava falls that leads into a bank surrounding a large straw nest. Lying off to the side of this nest is a large crimson owl with a raccoon's tail and wings made of pure fire. The creature looked beat up, which a singe mark splattered onto its forehead.

It was still alive, which was useful for Kirby and Riku as they descended onto the stable land in front of the owl and get off of the Warp Star, which surprisingly doesn't burst like the times beforehand. Kirby quickly walks up to the front of the owl and taps the front of its body to try and get a reaction from it. With a quiet hoo and an opening of its eyelids, the owl says weakly to the pink puffball in front of him "K-Kirby? W-What are you doing here?"

The owl flinches from pain and Kirby calmly says to it "Don't strain yourself Bohboh, you look really beat up. What happened here?"

With this question asked, Bohboh raises its right wing towards the ceiling of the volcano, specifically towards a large hole that had been blasted into it by what appeared to be lightning, as evidenced by the crackling electricity surrounding the confines of the tunnel. Riku flinches upon noticing these trace fragments of lightning, but before making note of this to Kirby Bohboh says to the star warrior "I-It was Kracko…"

Bohboh's wing falls flat against its body, the owl's strength drained in its entirety as it goes into a state of rest. Kirby turns towards Riku and says to him "Yeah, I don't think I need to ask if you suspected this outcome, do I?"

Riku, on the verge of a panic attack, quickly draws his sword and points it at the Warp Star, saying to Kirby "We need to get out of here, now!"

The star warrior doesn't even need to nod his head this time around and quickly follows Riku in leaping onto the Warp Star and flying their way out of the volcano. As they pass the cavern, the teenage Overlord stutters to himself repeatedly and says "This can't be happening, this seriously can't be happening!"

Kirby turns to Riku, offering a bit of emotional support with a simple "You holding up ok there?"

Riku shakes his head nervously, saying to the star warrior with his eyes widened in frenzy "How could this have happened?! Kracko should have gone for the Ice Element first, not the Fire one! Our advantage is basically ruined now, since in the time it took us to go to Vocal Volcano Kracko has probably already tracked down the Ice element!"

Riku looked ready to hyperventilate, which while in this body was not really detrimental to his health, still caused Kirby to take up a stance of deep concern for the boy as he states "Hold the phone Riku, it didn't really take us that long to go to the Vocal Volcano. We can probably head off to the closest ice area and reach the element before Kracko obtains it for himself."

"Kirby, as much as I appreciate your optimism here, I really don't think that's going to happen. Our best bet now would be to find Kracko and try to take him down…Ugh, he's gonna be powered by four of my elements, I can't imagine how much tougher that will make him compared to what he was before." Riku closes his eyelids and tries to release some of his stress with a sigh. Though Kirby wasn't able to make the boy consider checking the ice area, he was at least successful in calming his down somewhat.

But before the star warrior could smile at this, a rough gust of wind blows through the skies, hitting the Warp Star with enough force to rock it around while simultaneously grinding its speed down to a halt. After the Warp Star stops rocking around, the two heroes keep a steady grasp onto their ride as they look up into the sky and see a series of storm clouds of various colors forming overhead. There are clouds of black, snow grey and oddly enough orange in the sky, with only a rounded gap in the middle of them all.

Descending from the gap is Kracko, who still has the cloud platform from before, but is now ten times larger and has four arms. One arm is made of magma, the second is made of compressed wind, the third is made of condensed electricity, while the final one is made of pure snow. Kracko has also grown a second eye, and both of them are now normal sized in proportion with the rest of his head. Finally, he has obtained a beard of fog.

Kracko looks down upon the two heroes as they hold onto the Warp Star, saying in a similar voice to what he had before "Hello again, Kirby…And hello as well to your little friend. Or should I call you the Elemental Overlord?"

Kracko's choice of terminology in reference to the teenage Overlord caused Riku to flinch in shock, and he says in a voice loud enough for the giant Kracko to hear "H-How do you know my true identity?!"

Kracko points his snowy arm down at the red Kirby and says to him "I have your elemental powers to thank. Not only have they instilled me with greater powers, but also with vast knowledge…Especially in regards to their previous owner."

Riku didn't see that revelation coming. Sure Kracko was expected to get more powerful and he did seem a bit smarter after absorbing the Electricity and Wind, but the teenage Overlord didn't expect Kracko to receive information from the elements he obtained in regards to the Elemental Overlord title. "So what do you know exactly?" Riku asks.

"Quite a lot, actually." Kracko rubs his foggy chin with his electricity arm and says in regards to Riku's question "I know that you've traveled to two other worlds, and I know that you are from a planet called Earth…And strangely enough, you are a clo-"

Sensing just what the cloud monstrosity was about to say, Riku points his sword at him and exclaims "Enough out of you! Give me back my elements, they don't belong to you!"

Kracko raises an eyebrow at the teenage Overlord and says to him "Is that so?"

Keeping his arms afloat aside his large body as a coy smile crosses his face, Kracko says to Riku "Maybe that is true, but the elements certainly prefer to have me as their master then they do you."

Riku scowls at Kracko, but says nothing in regards to his words. Listening in, the teenage Overlord waits as the cloud monstrosity goes on to say "The four I have obtained have spoken to me, saying how they felt mistreated in your body. They mention sharing a space in your soul with a fragment of pure darkness and a blinding mesa of light…That is not to mention the amount of abuse you extolled on them when you allowed them to be covered in a corrosive material…It is certainly no surprise that they would find me to be a better master than you."

Kracko's words make Riku take pause and lower his sword slightly, as his mind thinks _"The elements inside of my body are capable of thinking? But that would mean they have…souls? And I was abusing them all?" _

Kirby speaks up as the teenage Overlord is stuck in thought, saying in an accusing manner towards Kracko "Like you won't use those elements to conquer Dream Land! How is that not a misuse of the elements you stole?!"

Kracko responds to Kirby's accusation with "I actually don't know what I shall do after I take all of the elements for myself. I myself personally like this mass quantity of knowledge and this relaxing feeling of power inside of my body…Maybe I will go travel this grand universe I have been told about by those elements and see what I can find."

Kracko then holds his magma arm out towards Riku and says to him "Please surrender the remainder of your elemental powers peacefully. I will spare you and Kirby, despite our previous scuffles."

Riku, after a good amount of thinking while listening to what Kracko has to say, quickly raises his sword back up towards the cloud monstrosity and says to him "Those aren't your powers to have."

Kracko pulls his arm back in surprise, saying in a quiet tone to the boy "You want these elements to suffer further?"

"Not at all." Riku says with a shake of his head. "If I've wronged these elements, then I need to atone for my mistakes. I don't want them to go on hating me for the rest of eternity, and if I let you have all of those elements then I'll never be able to atone. Besides, I don't believe for even a second that you will not eventually succumb to the power you have obtained and become a threat to the universe!"

Kracko stares down at Riku with an annoyed glance, saying to the two heroes "So you wish to fight, then? It'll be my four elements against your three…It would be a somewhat fair engagement, if my elements didn't also affect the very weather around us!"

Kracko raises his snowy arm into the air, causing it to glow an icy blue shade with his will as the clouds above him cycle around until the snow grey one floats over the two heroes as they stay on their Warp Star. Before they can attack him, the cloud monstrosity uses his compressed air arm to summon a wall of whirling winds around his entire body while simultaneously creating a barrier of magic through the slits on both sides of the snow grey clouds and the front of his body. As Kracko floats in the middle of the clouds, he says boldly to the heroes "Let us see if you can weather THIS storm, Kirby!"

Kirby turns to Riku and whispers to him as the boy holds his sword out beside his body and keeps a tight grasp on the Warp Star "Listen, you need to try and hold off as long as you possibly can until I can suck in a power-up. I think the barrier can be destroy by the same element it is trying to protect. Do you think if you plunged your sword into one of Kracko's arms you'd be able to reabsorb the element?"

Riku glances over at his sword for a moment and turns to Kirby, nodding his head and saying with a confident whisper "That might actually work. But we'll have to be careful of the harsh winds surrounding Kracko's body."

"Do not waste your breath on whispers, lest I turn your own oxygen against you." Kracko says as he thrusts his snowy arm at the two heroes and activates the snow clouds above them. In seconds, the air becomes frigid, forcing Kirby and Riku to quickly adjust to the temperature as tiny snowflakes sprinkle across the air from the change in atmosphere.

Looking up into the sky, the teenage Overlord watches as icicles begin to rain down from the sky like a bombardment of missiles, streaking through the skies at such an insane rate that Riku is barely able to swing his sword around fast enough to cut down any that get near the Warp Star. Kirby is also unable to suck in an icicle to obtain a power-up, since the moment one starts to move towards his open mouth another icicle collides with the top of his head and distracts him to the point of forcing his mouth shut. Riku tries to focus his attention towards the area above Kirby's head to cut down the icicles, but then runs into the same problem as the star warrior as a couple icicles crash down atop his head.

The pain of the icicles falling is sharp and cold, and their frequency is terrible to deal with for the teenage Overlord's side of things since this makes it tougher for Kirby to do his part of the plan as well. After a few seconds, the star warrior decides to move the Warp Star out of this stationary location in mid-air, since there was no harsh winds preventing him from moving now. Though the initial take-off left the two heroes dealing with the pain of a couple more icicles, they were eventually able to reach a blank spot in the air where the icicles don't fall down at such a rapid pace as they do in others areas.

Riku concentrates his blade on the air and raises it above his head, using a mental command towards it in order to make it spin around rapidly in the air to deal with some of the icicles, and then in a stint of inspiration the teenage Overlord pushes the handle-less sword away from his arm and makes it fly around in the air like a helicopter blade in order to quickly deal with most icicles coming towards the Warp Star. A single icicle slips through, but thankfully because it is in front of Kirby the star warrior is able to suck it in.

At long last, Kirby transforms, gaining an icy blue body with a crystal ice hat atop his head.

"Alright! Now lets get to work on destroying that barrier!" The star warrior smiles and enthusiastically exclaims, but not with enough volume to alert Kracko of what was going on.

With the Warp Star now thrusting forward with the guidance of Kirby's pointing right arm, the two heroes make their way towards the barrier that Kracko set up, with Riku using his mind to guide his spinning sword through the air above them to keep the icicles from striking them. Both of the teenage Overlord's arms are able to latch onto the Warp Star so he will not fall off, but his eyes are not focused on the barrier but rather Kracko's expression. The lack of a mouth on the monstrosity was certainly annoying, since it made it harder to identity just what he was thinking.

However, a sudden twitch of Kracko's eyes in a sly manner made Riku feel a bit worried about approaching the barrier. Naturally, those concerns were warranted, as the moment the two heroes were about to reach the barrier a hole is opened up inside of it that summons forth a powerful gale from the excess of the whirlwind surrounding Kracko that presses against Kirby's Warp Star and slowly kills its momentum and starts to push the ride back. Riku keeps his body pressed against the Warp Star and grits his eyelids shut, looking on ahead and thinking to himself _"You think this is going to stop us Kracko?!"_

Riku thrusts his left hand forward, guiding his sword in front of the Warp Star and positioning it vertically before rapidly increasing the speed at which it spins to counteract the gale enough that the Warp Star is able to move forward again in a matter of seconds. Grinning brightly as they near the barrier, the teenage Overlord looks up at Kracko and says "I may not control all elements right now, but that doesn't mean I can't counteract the ones you use now!"

Glancing over at the star warrior with a nod of his head, the teenage Overlord braces himself for the next phase of the plan as Kirby opens his mouth and lets out a large frigid breath towards the barrier, the connection of the two forces happening just as the two heroes were inches away from colliding with the barrier, and the meeting of both forms of ice causes the barrier to shatter apart and open the way towards Kracko. In turn, the whirlwind is unable to remain contained in a perfect form and spreads out across the air, weakening it to the point that the Warp Star is able to charge straight at Kracko without any complications.

Riku nods at Kirby again as the two heroes begin to approach the ice arm, entrusting him with his safety as calls his sword back to his right arm and leaps off of the Warp Star, thrusting his sword straight into the arm with one upward strike and causing a strange glow to surround the blade as in a swift second the arm vanishes into oblivion and with a spin of his body the teenage Overlord descends and lands perfectly onto the Warp Star as it flies in an upward arc and spins around so both heroes are positioned upright as they begin to fly back towards the snow area, whose clouds begin to fade away seeing as Kracko no longer had control over the Ice element.

The loss of this element also had an adverse effect on Kracko's appearance, as his body shrunk and he lost the beard on his chin. The cloud monstrosity flinched in pain from losing one element, but quickly worked on doing something about the two heroes' efforts with a thrust of his magma arm that moved the clouds in the sky so the orange ones now floated above the heroes and trapped them in a similar barrier to the one he created before. An intense heat burns through the skies, creating a dehydrating environment strong enough to actually melt off Kirby's Ice power-up and force him back into his sweating pink self.

The Warp Star turns around and faces the smaller Kracko while the two heroes think about what attack the monster will perform next with the Fire empowered clouds. Surprisingly not going for another bombardment of the element, Kracko instead snaps the fingers of his magma arm as the whirlwind reforms around his body and summons from the sky two large serpentine dragons made of pure fire. These dragons eclipsed the width that Kirby could open his mouth, meaning that it would be impossible for him to suck one of them in for the Fire power-up.

Or at least, that's what it appeared to be at first glance. Riku quickly came up with an idea after a couple seconds of looking at the fiery dragons, but as Kirby weakly commands the Warp Star to dodge the dragons with a backwards glide the star warrior mentions first "Riku…I need you to cut one of the dragons in half so I can suck one in…"

Kirby spoke in a tired whisper, the brunt of the heat in this environment coming so quickly after the chill proving to be too much for his body and weakening him with each passing second. Riku was affected by the heat, but had a bit of leeway thanks to the fact that he was being protected by the ice element inside of his body that counteracted the heat somewhat. Nodding his head towards the star warrior, the teenage Overlord quickly put his sights on one of the dragons as it flew his way and with a clean cut of his sword along with a swift right turn through the air on the Warp Star Riku is able to cut the dragon down through the center of its body.

Kirby then maneuvers to the backside and weakly sucks in the tail end of the dragon as the front end disintegrates. Another transformation takes place, and this time Kirby has successfully gained a crown of pure fire while his body turns a slight shade of red. The heat now no longer affects the star warrior, and he quickly snaps back into his cheerful and determined self in seconds. "Alright, lets go for round two!"

Kirby flips the Warp Star around, catching Riku off-guard and nearly making him lose his grip on it before the star warrior straightens things out and charges towards the barrier. Kracko is upset by the fact that the heroes have gotten the upper hand on him again, and quickly commands the clouds to summon forth a multitude of flaming dragons at the heroes. Riku points his sword up at the dragons and slashes them apart with rapid cuts as they approach, while Kirby lifts his head up and breathes flames that are hotter than those the dragons produce to deal with them easily.

The storm of flaming dragons is put to an end as Kirby thrusts his head forward quickly and through the pinhole that is now his mouth he shoots out a stream of flames powerful enough to reach and shatter the barrier, which also disperses the whirlwind like before. Kracko seems unnaturally calm during this period of time, especially as the two heroes rise into the air and head straight for the magma arm on the upper left part of the cloud monster's body. Riku once again leaps into the air and stabs the arm from underneath, destroying the arm and returning the power of Fire to its rightful owner once more.

However, before the teenage Overlord can descend back onto the Warp Star, his body is suddenly encased in a sphere of air created by Kracko's willpower. Kirby looks back at the boy as he is entrapped and exclaims "Riku!" in surprise, preparing to flip the Warp Star around to save him only to be met by a howling gale from behind his body that launches him uncontrollably away from Kracko's shrinking body. Kracko now loses his second eye, but is still three times larger than he originally was after transforming into this element empowered body. Using his control over the air to drag Riku in front of his body, Kracko exclaims in a very unnerved manner "You little insect! These elements have made their preferences known! You will not reclaim that which does not belong to you!"

With the teenage Overlord unable to respond, Kracko quickly uses his air arm to fling Riku into the patch of open sky above his body, shattering the orb apart as he raises his lightning arm into the air while simultaneously snapping the fingers of his wind arm in order to create a powerful tornado around his body that traps himself and the boy inside of these destructive winds, which connect with the fire and snow scarred Dream Land and tear it apart with each successful rotation, bringing debris inside of the tornado alongside the fragments of fire and ice from before.

Kracko exclaims "See now the power of the true Elemental Overlord and fall to ashes, child!" and begins to charge up electricity through his sparking arm.

Riku's eyelids thrust open as his body begins to descend back first through the tornado, the words Kracko exclaims making his expression take up a determined if somewhat somber expression as he quickly flips himself around and takes his sword in front of his body like a shield without saying a word. As he plummets at a rapid pace towards Kracko's body, Riku watches as the cloud monstrosity fires a powerful stream of lightning his way. However, the teenage Overlord calmly closes his eyes and lets the lightning strike the front of his sword, which is coated in his own aura for added defenses.

The lightning tries to break through the sword to reach the boy, but only manages to be diverted in multiple directions around Riku's body as he plummets faster than the lightning can manage to recombined and burn him apart. Kracko flinches in shock, exclaiming in a somewhat frightened tone of voice "What?!" as his lightning vanishes from view and Riku quickly positions his body upward, pointing his sword down at such an angle that the blade is plunged straight into Kracko's forehead, causing the cloud monstrosity to stiffly stay in this devastated pose as the boy uses his blade to drain Kracko of the Wind and Electricity elements, returning them back to his body just as things should be.

The return of the elements to Riku's body is followed up by a giant flash of light covering Kracko's body, which fills up the area inside of the tornado and eventually seeps out through the tiny cracks that are breaking through the circumference of the tornado itself, culminating in a burst of light tearing apart both the tornado and the remaining clouds in the sky as Kirby regains control of the Warp Star and turns towards the blinding light, covering his right eye with the appropriate hand as he takes off his Fire power-up.

When the light comes to an end, it is replaced with the warm light of the sun above Dream Land, and Kirby quickly wastes no time in noticing a speck falling out of a cloud of smoke towards the torn up landscape. Recognizing the speck as Riku, the star warrior quickly flies through the air to intercept the boy, who was conscious enough to notice Kirby's appearance below his spinning body and position himself in the right manner in order to land on the right side of the star, dispelling his sword in the process as he latches his arms around the Warp Star, barely managing to stay on as the weight of his landing shakes the star back and forth for a couple of seconds before it returns to a stationary position.

Kirby looks at Riku, who appears to be in a somewhat battered shape, but nonetheless gives the star warrior a bright smile as he lifts his right hand up and says "Hehehe…Mission accomplished…I got my elements back!"

Kirby smiles brightly as well, exclaiming in a joyous tone of voice "Alright! So I assume you finished off Kracko inside of the tornado too?"

Riku flinches as the star warrior makes that inquiry, and before he can make a comment regarding Kracko's fate the two heroes turn their heads to look forward as Kracko himself descends from the smoke cloud. He was now back to his original self, spiky exterior and all. However, the cloud monster's eyelid was limp in pain, and he was barely holding on to his consciousness. Looking at the teenage Overlord, Kracko weakly says in his original, static-y voice "H-How did I lose…I was the superior choice…"

Riku looks over at Kracko and says to him calmly "You don't know what it means to carry the title of the Elemental Overlord…In all fairness though, neither do I, but at the very least I wouldn't call myself a god. The way the elements speak to me now, they have told me that they'd prefer the way I treat them now to being in the body of an egomaniac. Its over Kracko, just go scurry back to the clouds and forget you ever took part in this whole ordeal."

Kracko's eyelids twitches in a painful manner, but the way he looks at the two heroes shows that he has a trick up his sleeve still. "You think…This is over? Far from it…There's still one element out there that I can easily obtain…And if the elements' fears are justified, then it is the strongest of them all…"

Kracko quickly turns around and flies off without so much as any pain forcing him to stop. Riku and Kirby flinch in surprise at the cloud monster's actions, but Riku in particular realized just what Kracko was talking about and immediately turned to the star warrior and exclaimed to him "We need to get to Dedede's Castle and get the Darkness element back before Kracko gets his hands on it!"

"Huh?" Kirby says, his mind adrift in another matter entirely before Riku's words breeched his ears and he turns to nod at him, tapping the side of his Warp Star so they could take up pursuit against Kracko, who was flying through the air of Dream Land towards the castle of the one and only King Dedede…

_Next Time: Melee a Trois_


	7. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6: Confrontation at Castle Dedede**

Kirby and Riku are flying through the skies of Dream Land (Geez, haven't the last four chapters started off with this type of dialogue?) in hot pursuit of the runaway Kracko, who is trying to go to his master Dedede's castle to obtain the Darkness element in order to regain the upper hand against the two heroes after Riku took his elements back. The star warrior pokes his head up and looks over the grassy knoll, seeing in the distance the rounded red towers and golden brick walls of King Dedede's Castle, which was surrounded by a large moat that was at least ten feet wide.

Kracko, with his speed being faster than the Warp Star, manages to get into the castle through the front doors with ease, his body shooting out two hot lightning bolts at the chains inside to force the large wood and metal door to slam down and attempt to block the way inside for the two heroes. However, with Kirby exclaiming "Brace yourself Riku, we're charging in!"

Riku nods his head in a confident manner and lowers his head slightly in unison with Kirby as the Warp Star increases its speed and slams straight into Castle Dedede's door faster then one could say "Poyo!" Debris of metal and wood scatters across the ruby carpet that adorns the floor of the castle's entrance as a star shaped mark with two lumps is left in the door. Kirby flies the Warp Star towards the ground, crashing into it with enough force that he and Riku are launched forward into the air after the Warp Star blows up.

Riku, with his face pointed towards the ground, quickly flips himself around and lands feet first on top of the carpet, skidding forward for a good few feet and kicking down a Waddle Dee that just so happened to be carrying a spear in the process. Once Kirby and Riku have stopped in place, they look on ahead at the golden pillars lined up on both sides of the carpet and sees a bunch of Waddle Dees looking at the same direction the two heroes are observing as Kracko appears to be headed for a large passage at the top of a double-sided curved staircase.

Before he leaves though, Kracko turns around and looks at the heroes, exclaiming towards the puzzled Waddle Dees "What are you doing you idiots?! Kirby and his friend are trying to breech the throne room to defeat our King?!"

The Waddle Dees, who apparently heard NOTHING about Kracko's betrayal, turn obediently towards Kirby and Riku as the cloud monster goes through the passage without any further hesitation. As the Waddle Dees charge at the two heroes, Kirby says to Riku "We need to deal with these Waddle Dees quickly. We can't let Kracko get too far ahead of us."

The teenage Overlord nods his head, and after drawing his sword the two of them dash forward at the swarm of spear wielding Waddle Dees. Kirby takes the closest Waddle Dee and sucks him up, transforming into his Spear form by gaining the pointed spear the Waddle Dee was holding along with a red bandana with a golden crest on the front wrapped around his head. Kirby used this spear as a projectile twice over to take out a couple of Waddle Dees that were in front of him, and then quickly charged forward and pushed the spear along the ground as he skid along the carpet and tripped a few more Waddle Dees into the air.

Riku leaps into the air and cuts down the Waddle Dees with a few well swung cuts of his sword, ending by bringing his blade down like a hammer and creating a diagonal burst of fire that burns the carpet and takes out five Waddle Dees in a row. The teenage Overlord notices that he got the flames on his sword back after performing that attack, but despite his earlier desires to prove that he could fight without the use of his powers he wasn't going to gimp himself when the situation had gotten this far out of control.

Pulling his sword off the ground, Riku and Kirby dash forward, taking down the remaining two Waddle Dees with two quick swings of their weapons. With all opposition dealt with for the moment, the two heroes wasted no time in rushing up the stairs and heading through the passage that Kracko went to. As they entered the torch lit hallway, Kirby turns to Riku and asks "Hey, can you sense that Darkness element of yours?"

Riku shakes his head as he continues to run, and as a bunch of invincible tiny black cannons fire at the two heroes from the walls and force them to either leap or cut down the cannonballs the teenage Overlord states "No, I can't sense anything. The darkness element was not one of my closest elements, if I have to be honest."

After bypassing the cannons, Kirby turns back at Riku for a moment as they stop in place beyond the range of the turning cannons, saying in an urgent tone of voice "Well Kracko would know where Dedede is, and the Darkness element has to be with him sooo…"

Riku widens his eyelids and proceeds to say to finish off Kirby's sentence "So it would be a good idea to track Kracko's electrical discharges! Good thinking there Kirby!"

Riku looks on ahead and tries to focus towards the air to find any signs of Kracko's trail, while Kirby awkwardly laughs and says "Well actually, I was going to suggest that I guide us to Dedede's throne room, since I can't imagine him being anywhere else in the castle, but that works too I guess!"

Riku, perceiving Kracko's electrical discharge in the form of a distorted blue trail of lightning mixed in with a neon atmosphere, and notices that up ahead the trail curves towards the right. "Alright, got a peg on where he went, but the trail is fading fast…Lets go!"

Riku and Kirby dash on ahead after the boy's enthusiastic declaration, following the trail of Kracko's flight through an arched shaped doorway and winding up in a room that is so brightly lit that its like the heroes were back outside in the sunny day. The floor was composed of orange blocks with star insignias marked on them, and there were glistening ferns planted in marble pots on both sides of the room. There was a ceiling above the two heroes that was composed of the same blocks as the floor, but had a gap in the center of it that they could easily jump through to ascend.

Noting that Kracko's trail went through the gap instead of the door at the very end of the room, Riku leaps through the gap and puffs his body up to make the final inches and land on the left side of the blocks. Kirby follows behind soon after, and notices that there is yet another gap up ahead. This time however, a couple of Waddle Dees descend through the gap carrying nothing but simple red-white parasols in their hands. Not wanting to harm such peaceful Waddle Dees, Kirby instead leaps on top of their parasols and uses them as stepstools to reach the next floor, with Riku following by leaping on top of the other parasol and joining Kirby on the next platform.

King Dedede clearly wasn't expecting Kirby to be here so soon, since there was little in the way of opposition as the two heroes continued to ascend this tower. At the very top of the tower, the heroes dash through a short hallway that appears to lead to a wide-open room at the very end of it. Inside this room Riku notices that Kracko's electrical discharge trail has come to an end, though the reason for that would become obvious in just a moment.

Turning towards the left as a crackling noise fills the room, Riku and Kirby sees Kracko floating in the air above a large machine that appears to be capable of long-range teleportation. He discharges electricity below his body in four separate streams to destroy the machine, seeing it as a threat for quit a good reason. Tilting their heads to the left, Riku notices that Kracko is confronting a portly penguin…eagle…duck creature with a regal red robe, blue-eyed blue face with a royal red cap and a large wooden hammer grasped in his right hand that has a yellow star surrounded by a pink background on the front of it. Naturally, this was King Dedede.

However, Riku noticed something grasped in Dedede's left hand. It was a pitch black orb that radiated with the ethereal ghostly glow of pure darkness. While the teenage Overlord was thankful that Dedede hadn't taken the power of darkness for himself, he didn't know how long such a thing would last. Kirby wanted to go confront Kracko and King Dedede, but Riku held his sword out to halt the star warrior and didn't say a word as he shook his head and listened in on what Kracko was saying to Dedede.

"My King, Kirby and his new cohort are on their way here to reclaim that orb in your hand! You need to give it to me so I can hide it from them before its too late!" Kracko tries to trick his master into handing over the Darkness element, but King Dedede looked at him and scoffed in an annoyed manner before kicking himself off of his comfy throne and landing flatly on the ground in front of the burning remains of his teleportation device.

"You think I'm stupid Kracko?! I heard from a reliable source that you went AWOL and took some of these strange orbs for yourself against my orders!" King Dedede exclaims in a deep, southern accent.

Kracko stutters, saying to his King "Y-You must be mistaken my King. I did no such thing! My loyalty is always to you, I swear!" He tried desperately to regain favor with King Dedede, but with Dedede starting to pull his hammer back it was obvious that Kracko's efforts were in vain.

"Well you can prove your loyalty to me again after you put yourself back together, traitor!" King Dedede exclaims as he swings his mighty hammer in an uppercut-like manner as though it was light as a feather, hitting the surprised Kracko straight in his eyeball so hard that it is launched towards the ceiling and breaks through it with ease, the cloudy part of his body coming undone right where the eyeball used to be as King Dedede swings his hammer around and stamps the top of it against the ground.

Dedede then looks down at the black orb in his left hand, saying in a puzzled tone "Still, I have to wonder why Kracko suddenly got so darn interested in this here orb. It doesn't really look like anything special…"

"Yeah, it isn't, so just hand it over Dedede!" Kirby's sudden exclamation causes the King to lift his head up and notice as Kirby and a second, mysterious red Kirby run into the range of his vision.

"W-What? Two Kirbys?!" Is the immediate thing that comes to King Dedede's panicking mind as he looks at the two heroes.

"Actually, I'm a human, but I have this body because-" Riku was about to correct King Dedede's assumptions, but decided against this and shook his head before stating "You know what, never mind…"

Stiffening his body in a battle pose and glaring at Dedede, Riku exclaims "Hand over that orb Dedede, or things are going to get uglier than your decisions in interior design!"

Glancing at the red Kirby with a befuddled raise of his right eyebrow, Dedede said "Boy, you sure do have a mouth on you to demand something from me."

After making this statement, King Dedede let go of his hammer's handle for a moment and scratches the back of his head in an irritated manner, stating in a quiet voice "Ugh, I wish this itch in the back of my head would go away already…"

Kirby doesn't acknowledge this action, stating in a somewhat polite tone of voice towards Dedede "Seriously Dedede, you don't have some big plan to disrupt Dream Land, right? So if you just give us that orb without any fuss we won't have to waste any time fighting. You know I'd beat you again anyways."

King Dedede puts his hand atop the handle of his hammer again and asks the two heroes "If you want this orb so badly, then explain to me just what is so important about it and I might consider just handing it off to you."

Riku glares at King Dedede and slowly but calmly states to him "The orb you are carrying contains the power of absolute darkness. If you try to take control of it, it will only control you with the desire for ultimate power it will instill within your mind. You are better off handing that back to me, because I can at least control the darkness."

King Dedede once again raises his eyebrows suspiciously, rubbing the back of his head with his right hand again before saying to the two heroes "Well it seems this orb is really important to you, and really detrimental to me. I'm no idiot, but at the same time I still have a reputation to uphold as a king! I don't want anyone to think I'm a tyrant."

King Dedede stamps his right hand atop the handle of his hammer while Kirby smiles and says to the King "Thanks for making this easy for us. Sorry about Kracko barging in like that, and I'm also sorry that we had to take down a bunch of your Waddle Dees and break down your door."

Kirby mentioning this to Dedede causes the King to react with a furious glare towards Kirby, as he proceeds to stamp his feet and says "Dangnabbit Kirby, why are you always destroying my property?! And I'm the only one who can do anything to my Waddle Dees!"

Stamping the top of his hammer against the ground, King Dedede pulls it over his right shoulder and says to Kirby as he flips the darkness orb into the air and smirks "You know what Kirby? If your little friend wants this, you are going to have to fight me on the roof of my castle, got it?!"

King Dedede charges up a jump on the ground and proceeds to leap into the sky, rising so high up that he actually breaks a hole through his ceiling…Which goes against his earlier remark against Kirby regarding the property damage, but the two heroes didn't really care much about that. With Riku letting out a tired sigh and saying "Well, I guess a fight against Dedede was to be expected. Oh well, this will be simple enough. Lets go Kirby!"

The star warrior nods his head enthusiastically and leaps into the air beside the boy, the two of them puffing their bodies up and rising towards the hole that Dedede made in a matter of seconds. After making it onto the stable stone brown roof of King Dedede's castle, the two heroes see the King standing near the north edge with hammer hauled over his right shoulder and the stone of darkness getting tucked into his robe for safekeeping as he stares the two heroes down with a sly smile on his face.

Kirby matches Dedede's smile with a grin of his own as he twirls the spear around his body and says "You sure you want to do this Dedede? You can just give us the stone and avoid having to lie in bed for a week to recover from your injuries."

Dedede meets Kirby's words with a confident "I actually feel as though I might defeat you this time around." And the King then proceeds to wave his left hand at Kirby to invite him to battle.

Riku draws his sword ready to fight as well, but as he holds the blade out beside his body he suddenly flinches and says to Kirby "Uh-oh, we might have a slight problem here…"

Kirby turns towards Riku and mutters out a slight "Huh?"

The teenage Overlord proceeds to say "Something's coming our way quickly, and I can feel him cutting through the air with a pair of…"

Riku doesn't have to take too much to realize just who was coming towards Castle Dedede, and with his body quickly turning around he exclaims to Kirby "Take down Dedede quickly, I'll hold off-"

In a streak of flight that unleashed a blistering gale, the mysterious figure that Riku detected passed over the two heroes and heads straight for King Dedede, forcing the surprised King to swing his hammer straight in front of his body to block the swift swing of a golden sword. The meeting of golden metal and wood creates a small outbreak of sparks, and the person holding the sword is forced to suspend himself in mid-air to keep the pressure on Dedede.

The owner of this jagged sword that many say was born from the center of a galaxy is a dark blue creature with a similar rotund form to Kirby and Riku, only with a couple of ivory metal shoulder pads and a silver mask that made his eyes appear bright yellow and the face behind it obscured in a veil of pitch black. Keeping the person in flight was a pair of bat wings attached to his back that flapped slowly as he kept his sword, Galaxia, pressed against the hard wood of Dedede's hammer.

As Riku turns around, Kirby exclaims the name of the warrior in complete surprise "Meta Knight?! What is he doing here?"

Meta Knight draws his sword back and tries to swing at King Dedede's hammer again as the King takes up a defensive stance and says to the warrior "Meta Knight have you lost your mind?! What are you doing attacking me?!"

Meta Knight stays stoic as he rapidly swings his sword to break through Dedede's mighty defense, saying nothing in response to the King as he pushes himself back through the air with one strong swing of his sword and lands on the ground, folding his bat wings into his body, causing them to transform into a grey-blue cape with a strange, dull silver mark on the back of it. Kirby takes a couple steps forward, sharing on Dedede's confusion as he says to Meta Knight "Hey Meta, just what do you think you are doing?"

Meta Knight extends his sword out to the right and keeps his back turned towards Kirby, saying in a very deep, serious tone of voice "Kirby, now is not the time for you to get in my way. Leave now and let me take care of this quickly."

Kirby says to Meta Knight in response "Are you kidding me? You just attack Dedede out of the blue and you expect me to just back off without knowing why?"

Meta Knight turns his head towards Kirby an inch and says to him "Kirby, I do not have time to answer your questions. You should know from experience to trust me."

Meta Knight looks back towards King Dedede, but before he can advance at him Kirby leaps into the air and lands in front of the masked warrior. With spear swung towards the ground, the star warrior says to Meta Knight "While I can trust you somewhat, I don't see why I should let you do anything to Dedede."

"Kirby…" Meta Knight growls out the star warrior's name in annoyance, and proceeds to brandish Galaxia at him and say "So be it."

Meta Knight grabs the hilt of Galaxia with both hands and holds it above his body with the tip pointed forward. A second later the masked knight slams the sword against the stone ground with all of his might, summoning forth two high speed neon tornadoes in front of and behind his body, the cutting power of these two tornadoes tearing apart the ground in both directions as Kirby leaps off to the right and King Dedede leaps to the left and freaks out slightly as the edge of the tornado nearly tore his right foot off.

As King Dedede wobbles in place to try and regain his balanced while seeing how there is a large scar across the roof of his castle now, exclaiming to Meta Knight as he pumps his left fist into the air "And now you go and tear up my castle?! What the heck is your problem today?!"

Meta Knight ignores the King's exclamation and puts Galaxia back in his right hand, charging straight at Kirby as the star warrior anticipates the masked warrior's actions and uses his spear as a guard as Meta Knight stops a foot away and thrusts his sword forward like a lance multiple times in the air, his thrusts coming out like thin light blades just because of how fast he was attacking. However, Kirby was able to block all of the attacks like it was nothing.

As Dedede gets increasingly pissed at Meta Knight's lack of responses with his face contorting in anger, he fails to remember that there was another warrior on the battlefield. Riku approaches Dedede from the side and says to him "Hey Dedede, I hope you haven't forgotten that you have something of mine."

King Dedede's anger subsides for a moment as he turns to face the red Kirby, who smiles at him and flips his sword around above his right hand with the help of his mind. Dedede groans and says "Oh joy, you're still around!"

Dedede turns towards Riku, pointing his back at the dueling Kirby and Meta Knight as he says to the boy "Look, I'm REALLY not in the mood to fight now. Between you, Kirby and that crazy Meta Knight I just want to go lie down and forget this whole day has even happened and hopefully get rid of this darn headache! So you know what, you can have your crazy darkness orb back!"

Dedede starts to reach into his robe with his left hand to pull out the orb he buried within, his reluctance to fight surprising Riku but at the same time making him feel relieved that things would be this simple despite Meta Knight's sudden appearance here. But as the King's sleeve began to emerge from the pocket, his arm suddenly stops in place, and Dedede flinched in surprise and looked down at his limb as he pulled hard on it to try and rip it from his pocket.

"Huh? Now what's going on here?" Dedede says as he grunts and groans to try and get the darkness orb out of his pocket, failing with each passing second to make any progress as Riku glares on suspiciously and mutters out "Ok, this is foreboding…"

Meanwhile, with Meta Knight and Kirby, the masked warrior hears Dedede's strained grunts and glances his way, pulling his sword away from his duel with Kirby for a moment to turn his body and toss the blade straight at Dedede. Kirby reacts with a shock and an exclamation of "NO!" as Meta Knight's folds his arms and cape in front of his body and glares at the Galaxia as it flies through the air and heads towards Dedede's backside.

However, Galaxia does not strike the King directly, but instead cuts through a misty black strand of darkness that was attached to Dedede's back and was invisible up until the point that Meta Knight struck it. When the strand becomes visible, the creature who created the strand is revealed, much to Kirby and Riku's shock. It was a black, spherical entity with a foggy appearance and a single oval shaped yellow eye with a strange orange outline. The creature widens its eye in shock as its cover is blown, and at the same time Kirby and Riku exclaim "D-Dark Matter?!"

King Dedede, after having his connection to Dark Matter turn, is overcome with a powerful migraine as he is finally able to pull his arm out of his robe with the darkness orb grasped in his hand. Mumbling to himself as he rubs his head with his left hand, Dedede says to himself "Ugh…What just happened?"

The Dark Matter orb, without so much as an inch of hesitation, quickly turns towards the King and sees his grip on the darkness element starting to slip and thrusts two strands into Dedede's back. As the King flinches in pain, Dark Matter works up his spine and infiltrates his brain again, this time however taking full control of his mind and wasting no time in having him tighten his grip on the orb of darkness.

Kirby exclaims desperately "Hey! What do you think you are doing?!" and proceeds to toss a spear straight at Dark Matter to try and stop it from doing anything else with Dedede's body. Dark Matter swings itself to the side to dodge the spear, followed by ducking down to avoid a flame scar from Riku's blade. Dark Matter doesn't lose its stride in its actions as it dodges those attacks, and with a pale dark purple glow coming from the orb of darkness Dark Matter finally looks at the three gathered heroes and quietly says in a raspy voice that echoes with the tone of a thousand other sentient creatures _"Our Master…Lives again…"_

The orb of darkness fades out, and this single entity of Dark Matter tugs its strands out of King Dedede's body with one callous tug and lets him fall flat against the ground. Riku runs and picks up his Darkness element, but doesn't get a chance to absorb it back into his body as a cold chill passes over the skies of Dream Land and forces himself, Kirby and Meta Knight to look up towards the sunny sky as a gap is suddenly ripped into the atmosphere. The bit of Dark Matter rises into the air towards the gap as it widens immensely and creates a ring of dark clouds in the sky that crackles with crimson electricity and turns the blue skies a pale grey.

After only a good few seconds the atmosphere of Dream Land has changed to fit the storm filled gap, and as the clouds spiral around the center of the gap Kirby and Riku watch as from the gap emerges hundreds upon hundreds of Dark Matter orbs. Dark Matter flies across the whole of Dream Land, a perfectly coordinated swarm whose only desire was to take this planet for themselves. And as Kirby and Riku tremble nervously, Meta Knight keeps his stoic demeanor and says to himself "They have finally made their move…"

_Next Time: The Halberd's Siege_


	8. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7: Siege on Dark Matter**

The sky had darkened across Dream Land. It was not a pleasant darkness like the night sky would be, but a gruesome one that lacked emotion and brought nothing but chaos across the pleasant landscape below the gaping hole that just opened in the sky. Dark Matter, the spherical pitch blackness that has threatened this peaceful planet three times over, has returned yet again.

Standing atop Castle Dedede with surprise in their eyes is Kirby and Riku. Between the two of them was the calm and stoic Meta Knight, who swung his right hand out beside his body with the fabled sword Galaxia in his hand, looked up into the sky and saw three orbs of Dark Matter coming their way, saying to the other two heroes calmly yet deeply "Prepare yourself, they are coming for our bodies."

Though Meta Knight's words made Kirby curious as he turned his head off to the side and glanced at the knight, only to quickly look back towards the sky as the three orbs of Dark Matter quickly flew their way, their eyes glaring furious at the star warrior in particular as he tosses his spear at one of them and pierces through it to destroy it in one shot. However, two more Dark Matter spheres takes its place to head towards Kirby.

Riku, who was focused on his recently reclaimed orb of darkness, had to hear an exclamation from Kirby before taking up action against Dark Matter "Hey Riku, can you get Dedede out of here before Dark Matter takes over his body?!"

Riku looks up towards the sky after that exclamation and sees a couple of Dark Matter orbs going towards the unconscious king, and after reactively smashing his orb of darkness so the elemental essence can be put back into his body the teenage Overlord dashes forward and moves beside Dedede's body. After a couple of seconds Riku picks the large King up and holds him over his right shoulder, managing to leap back as the Dark Matter orbs move where he once was and float above the roof, flipping themselves upward to glare at the teenage Overlord as he draws his sword.

With the girth of Dedede keeping him from fully engaging the Dark Matter orbs, Riku glanced over to the left and saw the hole the King made with his earlier jump and without hesitation he tossed him back into the castle, leaving gravity and the impact with the ground to Dedede as he swings his burning blade at Dark Matter and cuts one recklessly charging orb down with one easy slash while also firing a wave of flame that deals with the other bit of Dark Matter.

The teenage Overlord then turns towards Meta Knight and Kirby, who have stood back to back to deal with the bits of Dark Matter that are trying to swarm the two of them without end in an attempt to possess either one and secure victory with that single move. However, no matter how hard the heroes try to fight back, the Dark Matter orbs keep reforming and steadily increase in numbers, to the point that the only way the two warriors were able to get any breathing room was because Riku quickly swung his stubby left hand into the air to create a burst of air around Kirby and Meta Knight's body that blows back the two dozen Dark Matter orbs that had gathered above Dedede's Castle at that very moment.

Meta Knight, with Galaxia glowing brightly, swings his blade at some Dark Matter orbs that have lined up perfectly in the air, sending out a compressed, spiky wave of energy at them that cleaves them in two. Afterwards Meta Knight looks at his left arm and says to it "They have made their move, you know where I am located…Summon the Halberd."

A bird-like voice responds on the other side of Meta Knight's line of communication, saying in a respectful tone _"On the way sir!"_

Kirby tilts over his right shoulder as he summons another spear in his hand, saying in a puzzled tone to Meta Knight "Hey Meta Knight, what is going on here? Why has Dark Matter come back, and how do you even know about them?"

Meta Knight doesn't respond at first as he holds his left hand inside of his cape and sheathes Galaxia, saying in a deep tone of voice "Kirby, hold off Dark Matter as long as you can, and then you shall receive your answers once we get on the Halberd."

The star warrior turns back towards the Dark Matter orbs as the ones Riku blew away recover and are joined by twenty more orbs that gather in a circular fashion around the heroes. They planned to converge in one single location, merging into a gigantic orb that would be impossible to dodge or break apart by the single attacks of any of the heroes. However, seconds before they charge, a bombardment of spear shaped lasers fill the Dark Matter orbs with holes, tearing them apart so thoroughly this time around that not a single one of them are capable of regenerating.

Kirby and Riku turn themselves around and look off the edge of the Dedede's castle as the roar of a rocketing engine echoes in the distance, all the while Meta Knight folds his cape together in front of his body and says "Good, the new engine is operating at maximum capacity."

Flying towards all three heroes is a large, long battleship with a helm that has been crafted to look exactly like Meta Knight's mask. The backside of this mighty ship was equipped with two gigantic bat-like wings that stood stationary, and near the front were a bunch of smoking laser cannons that poked out through windows installed along the side of the battleship. As the Halberd got closer, the cannon continued to fire upon the hole in the sky to take care of any bits of Dark Matter that were in the midst of escaping, all the while descending beside the roof of Castle Dedede so the smooth deck is laid adjacent to the roof.

The pressure the battleship exerts as it descends brushes the bottom of Meta Knight's cape and makes the two other heroes flinch. As the engines of the Halberd roar quietly beside the castle, Meta Knight glances off to the right and says to the two heroes "Come, we will not be safe here soon…"

Meta Knight then unfurls his cape slightly on both sides and leaps over the edge of the rooftop, landing atop the deck of his ship as Kirby and Riku turn and nod their heads at each other before they run forward and head towards the Halberd. With Dark Matter still trying to assault the heroes, Riku swings his sword rapidly, sending wave after wave of fire after the orbs to take them down before following the star warrior in leaping through the air onto the Halberd as Meta Knight glances towards the cockpit of his ship and nods, commanding the captain he put into that position of power to take-off.

The engines roar up again and Halberd starts to rise further into the sky as Meta Knight calmly walks across the deck and Kirby and Riku are taken off-guard by the shifting of the battleship below their feet. The two heroes then join the stoic warrior in walking across the Halberd, though Kirby goes at a faster pace while Riku spends a few seconds looking around this fantastic ship up close and personal, noting the gigantic cannons and the laser gun with the extendable arm in front of the cockpit in particular.

Afterwards the teenage Overlord looks towards the sky and sees Dark Matter swarming the skies, with most of them trying to dive towards the battleship yet disintegrating against a reflective yet barely perceivable surface, which causes Riku to tilt his head in confusion before he looks on ahead and dashes to catch up with Kirby and Meta Knight, who seem to be in the middle of a one-sided conversation. The star warrior, after discarding his Spear power-up with a thought, says to the stoic warrior "Alright Meta Knight, you promised an explanation, so spill!"

Kirby's demanding attitude is met without any blunt reaction from Meta Knight, unsurprisingly, but the warrior still goes on to say to Kirby "Follow me to the cockpit, Kirby, and bring your comrade along with you."

After saying those words Meta Knight walks along ahead as Kirby stands still with a bewildered look in his eyes, and Riku runs up beside him just seconds later and points towards the sky while saying to the star warrior "Hey Kirby!"

Kirby turns towards Riku, but before he questions what took him so long to catch up he looks up at the direction the boy is pointing towards and sees the Dark Matter orbs crashing against the barely visible force surrounding the Halberd. The battleship itself is then seen heading towards the gaping hole in the sky, but as it rises into the air its speed lowers immensely to the point that is only crawls towards the center of the phenomenon. The Dark Matter orbs glide alongside the Halberd, stopping themselves from touching the barrier around the ship so they can continue to infiltrate Dream Land one after another.

Kirby sighs and rubs the back of his head, saying in a guilt-ridden tone of voice "I hate leaving everyone down there to deal with Dark Matter, but I don't think we should really get off the Halberd right now."

Riku understands Kirby's plight, and says to the star warrior to make him feel a little better "We will deal with the source of Dark Matter quickly, and then everyone will be ok down in Dream Land."

This brings a smile to Kirby's face, who proceeds to say "Yeah, no need to worry too much about everyone, they'll be fine as soon as we finish off Dark Matter. Lets go see Meta Knight though so we can figure out what's going on."

Riku nods his head in agreement, and the two heroes cross the rest of the deck and enter the single doorway at the bottom of the command tower near the back. Inside this part of the Halberd are walls made up entirely of metallic plates along with a single elevator whose suspension wires are visibly attached to the top of it. The elevator had no doors to speak of and was composed of a simple metal frame that the two heroes merely had to stand on in order to get it to lift up through the shaft of the Halberd control center after it jerked ever so slightly.

The ascension did not take very long at all, and afterwards Kirby and Riku get off the elevator and merely have to take a couple steps forward to arrive inside of the cockpit of the Halberd. At the very end of the room was a giant bipedal chicken in a pristine white captain's suit and a fitting hat atop his head that was turning the wooden wheel of the Halberd, the device looking rather out of date compared to the technology seen aboard the rest of the ship. Behind the captain was Meta Knight, who turned his head slightly and upon recognizing the presence of the two heroes he completes his turn and unfurls his cape slightly.

Kirby, before speaking to the stoic warrior, looks past the clear windows of the Halberd's cockpit and notices that the battleship is slowly rising into the maelstrom of darkness that Dark Matter is pouring through, though the ship is staying relatively level as it rises so its impossible to tell what lies directly above them at that very moment. The star warrior then turns towards Meta Knight and says to him "Alright Meta Knight, no more leading us on. What's going on here?"

Meta Knight faces the heroes and holds his right hand towards them in an upside-down fashion as a slot in the ceiling opens up, and a few seconds later a glass casket descends from above and surprises both Kirby and Riku with its contents. Flailing about in this casket is a fragment of Dark Matter that Meta Knight had captured, and no matter what the orb does it is unable to escape the confines of the casket. Meta Knight proceeds to say to the two awestruck heroes "I should not have to tell you what this is."

"You captured Dark Matter? But wait, wasn't that orb we saw emerging from Dedede-" Before Kirby can finish his sentence the stoic warrior faces him and says "That was only one of the sleeper agents sent to Dream Land."

Kirby goes silent after momentarily widening his eyes in surprise, and Meta Knight proceeds to explain "A few days ago, I managed to capture one of these Dark Matter orbs after they tried to corrupt one of my officers. We tried to get the creature to explain its purpose, but it only spoke a few things to us…"

Meta Knight, in a foreboding tone of voice, repeated these words to the best of his ability to the two heroes _"Darkness…Return…Matter and Mind…Together…The King…" _

"Further attempts to interrogate the Dark Matter orb led to it letting slip information on the rest of its kin's activities. One of its orbs planned on observing Dream Land through the eyes of Dedede, but its motives for doing so were unclear. Even so, I couldn't ignore what Dark Matter had said, and spent the next few days close-by Dedede until I could get in the perfect position to plant a microphone chip onto his coat so I could listen in in case Dark Matter began to speak its motives." Meta Knight explains as he snaps his fingers and orders the captured Dark Matter to be returned to the ceiling.

"But then something I did not expect occurred, as Dedede came across an orb of darkness and suddenly became interested in collecting anything similar to them. I can only assume Dedede did it on Dark Matter's subconscious orders. Though I know now just who is responsible for bringing these orbs to our world…" Meta Knight glares over at Riku, giving him a suspicious expression before slowly asking "But before I explain anything else, I have to wonder just who you are exactly. You share Kirby's body composition, but you definitely have a different set of powers compared to him."

Riku looks at Meta Knight and feels a bit nervous thanks to his imposing glare, but knowing all too well that an explanation about his presence would earn the warrior's trust the teenage Overlord proceeded to state "My name is Riku, I am the Elemental Overlord, a being entrusted with the task of protecting other worlds from evil. I'm sorry about the mix-up with the elemental orbs. If I must be honest, I don't even know how my elements split off from my body or how I went from looking like a human to looking like Kirby."

Meta Knight raises his right eyebrow with his curiosity piqued, and he says to the boy "A human, you say? Hmm, that explains some of your mannerisms and actions…But if the elements of yours were not purposely spread, then I cannot blame you for what has occurred. You do have a right to know what has happened though."

Meta Knight returns back to his earlier explanation of the transpiring events, saying to the two heroes "When Riku explained the properties of the darkness orb, the Dark Matter that was subconsciously controlling Dedede took him to the rooftop and was preparing to use the orb to open this rift in the sky and summon its brethren to the planet."

"But why are they performing such a large scale invasion of Dream Land?" Kirby asks, his mind barely able to keep up with everything that has been said as his vision briefly goes dizzy and he tilts his head off to the side.

"I have reason to believe that they are searching for something here. Whatever it is, it must be something that Kirby has seen before, for all the Dark Matter orbs have desperately been trying to possess him." Meta Knight's explanation is countered by Kirby, who laughs and says in a humored tone of voice "Or they could just have been after me to get revenge for the fact that I killed their master twice."

"That is also possible." Meta Knight gave Kirby acknowledgement in regards to his theory, caring little for the nonchalant behavior the star warrior showed as he said it.

"Whatever the case may be, we can't let them obtain what they want. So I can only assume the Halberd is being guided into this rift so we can take down Dark Matter, right?" Riku asks.

Meta Knight nods his head, and proceeds to mention to the two heroes "As you have noticed, the Halberd is currently equipped with a shield that prevents Dark Matter from attacking. We created it after analyzing the composition of Dark Matter and coming up with an anti-body of sorts."

"Well, it shouldn't take us long at all to deal with Dark Matter. Though I have to ask, what's taking the Halberd so long to ascend?" Kirby asks.

"The rift is exerting a lot of pressure, making it harder for even the Halberd to rise. We can't afford to slant the battleship upward, for we don't have any anti-gravity devices onboard. The barrier will keep us protected in the meantime." As Meta Knight finishes his explanation, Riku tilts his head to the right and looks past the window of the Halberd and notices a strange light glowing in the distance.

Before he can make note of this light though, the Halberd is suddenly shaken around by something from outside, and while Kirby and Riku almost are thrown onto their faces Meta Knight stays calm and quickly turns around while commanding the captain to keep the ship steady.

Meta Knight then looks past the windows and sees a pure white laser slamming against the front of the Halberd's barrier. The might of this laser was enough to put cracks in the barrier with each passing second, which surprised the usually stoic warrior as Kirby regained his balance and quickly went to see the event unfold, pointing out to Meta Knight "Hey, isn't this barrier supposed to stop all forms of Dark Matter?"

Meta Knight goes quiet for a moment, then says to Kirby "…Then this laser wasn't created by a being composed of Dark Matter."

While that matter needed to be addressed, it would not be at this moment, for after a good five more seconds the laser cracks through the barrier entirely, shattering it into a thousand different sized fragments as the laser heads towards the deck of the ship and Meta Knight exclaims to all passengers "Brace yourself!"

The laser impacts with the deck and the concussive force pushes the front of the ship forward, causing everyone in the cockpit to lose their balance and get thrust forward. Meta Knight quickly draws Galaxia and stamps the tip of the blade into the now slanted ground to prevent himself from flying out the window, while the captain pins himself to the wheel and refuses to let go. Riku summons his own sword in his left hand and pins it to the floor, using his right hand to grab Kirby by his left hand and stop him from falling towards the window.

The heroes hold on for dear life as the laser keeps pressing against the battleship for a good thirty seconds, but the durability of the Halberd proves to be much stronger than the being responsible for firing the laser expected and eventually the being ceased its attack on the Halberd. In a matter of seconds, the mighty battleship stabilizes, and Meta Knight pushes himself onto his feet and quickly puts his left hand in front of his face to say into it "The barrier has broken, prepare the laser defense array for battle against Dark Matter. And summon the Heavy Lobster onto the deck for added assistance!"

Meta Knight sounded a little unnerved by what just happened, and as Kirby and Riku get onto their feet and turn to face the usually stoic knight he says to them "Prepare for battle. The Halberd needs to remain intact and Dark Matter is going to start swarming the battleship any second. I will stay here for the moment and direct my crew."

Meta Knight turns around and raises his left hand up as he looks outside the windows and sees a massive swarm of Dark Matter orbs heading towards the mighty Halberd, their numbers being far more than he anticipated yet his determination not wavering in the slightest as the laser cannons fire upon Dark Matter to slow down the swarm as much as physically possible. A hole in the deck opens up, and from a lift slowly rises up a large bipedal creation with a golden coat whose body looks similar to that of a lobster. The claws of this mechanical creature were almost as big as its body, and widened up so it could launch a furious barrage of missiles upon the Dark Matter orbs. The skies were filled with explosions and fragments of Dark Matter, all the while the Halberd continued to rise up through the rift.

Kirby turns towards Riku as the boy looked at what was happening outside and said "Lets get a move on Riku, we should be able to provide a good amount of assistance."

The teenage Overlord turns his head at the star warrior and nods, and the two heroes turn around all the way and head back towards the elevator to descend back towards the deck. As the elevator lowers and a couple explosions make the Halberd tremble, Riku has a dismayed look on his face that grabs the star warrior's attention as he asks "Something the matter?"

Riku sighs and says to Kirby "Once again my Darkness element has caused nothing but trouble for a world…I'm personally wondering if I just try and find a way to just get rid of it permanently. I'm sorry that this happened Kirby…"

The star warrior, unfazed by Riku's apology, says to him after patting him once on the back "Stop being so mopey Riku. If Dark Matter hadn't used your darkness, they would have probably found some other way to create a rift in the sky. Right now, we just need to focus on taking them down before they conquer all of Dream Land."

The elevator reaches the bottom floor as Kirby finishes his sentence, in front of the heroes now lying two golden stands with a bubble atop each one that represented a different power-up for Kriby to use. Riku turned towards the star warrior as he noticed the power-ups and said to him as he walked towards the one on the right "Thanks for that Kirby."

Kirby touches the orb that contained a golden bow and a pair of wings and is suddenly equipped with a pair of tiny fairy wings on his back and the bow becomes equipped in his right hand with a heart-shaped arrow attached to the string of the bow. Riku can barely contain his laughter upon seeing Kirby wearing such a silly outfit for the Cupid power-up and with his left hand planted in front of his face he puffs his cheeks out and lets out a little humored snort.

Kirby turns towards Riku and smiles, saying to him "See? You're lightening up already. Now lets move out to take down the Dark Matter orbs attacking the Halberd!"

Kirby and Riku make a mad dash for the door in front of them and head onto the deck of the Halberd, where the battle seems to going rather smoothly. The Heavy Lobster is proving to be a strong deterrent against the Dark Matter orbs, for its missiles blow a massive chunk of the swarm apart with each explosion. The teenage Overlord says to Kirby "You know, I really wish we had time to go find my Light element before this fight, since I think that's the only element I have that would allow me to fly on this planet."

"Just use your projectile attacks on the ground, and I'll cover the air for you Riku." Kirby says as he kicks his feet off the ground and takes flight in the sky with his Cupid wings, pulling his bow back at the same time and causing a glowing ring to appear around the heart-shaped tip of the arrow before launching three arrows in three separate arcs through the air at the orbs of Dark Matter. The arrows pierce the orbs through the eyes and cause them to disintegrate swiftly, something Riku takes note of as he begins to walk forward to join the Heavy Lobster in the defense of the Halberd.

However, before he gets too close, something unexpected yet again occurs as the remnants of Dark Matter that have so far been destroyed by the Halberd's cannons and the Heavy Lobster merge together to create a gigantic sphere of Dark Matter that wastes no time in thrusting through the smoke clouds created from the missile explosions and merging directly with the Heavy Lobster itself. Riku stops in place a few feet away from the Heavy Lobsters and watches as the mechanical creature begins to short circuit before his eyes, with the golden texture of the creature slowly turning into a dark purple shade from front to back.

Dark Matter was usurping control of the Heavy Lobster from Meta Knight, and the changes did not end with just the coloring. The claws gained a few tiny spikes along the backside, and the eyes went for green to hollow white. The rockets attached to the back and top of the Heavy Lobster also release a burst of dark black flames instead of bits of smoke after the transformation came to an end, and the machine quickly swerved around and pointed itself at one of the laser cannons.

With a single thrust of its right claw, the Dark Matter Heavy Lobster punctured the side of the laser cannon closest to it and caused heavy damage to the inner wiring. It wasn't enough to stop the laser cannon from firing at the Dark Matter swarm, but one more shot would incapacitate the weapon for good. Riku quickly looked towards the sky as he saw the Heavy Lobster transform via possession and exclaimed to the star warrior "Hey Kirby, we got a bit of a problem down here!"

Kirby stops firing at the Dark Matter orbs with his arrows after hearing Riku speak to him, and with a quick glance down the star warrior quickly descends beside the boy and pulls back on the string of his bow to fire a piercing arrow at the left eye of the Dark Matter Heavy Lobster. The glass of the eye is broken through and some circuits underneath are hit, causing the Heavy Lobster to briefly flinch and stop its attack on the Halberd's cannon as with a few heavy steps it turns to face the heroes, with the Dark Matter orbs inside clamping and opening the claws a few times over to show disdain towards Kirby. Kirby then says to Riku "We need to destroy the Heavy Lobster before it can destroy our last line of defense against Dark Matter."

Riku sarcastically replies "Geez, really?" But quickly laughs off his own remark and puts on a serious expression as he swings his sword around with a mental command and prepared to enter battle against the possessed Heavy Lobster…

_Next Time: The One Who Controls Dark Matter_


	9. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8: The True Dark Matter**

With the Dark Matter Heavy Lobster threatening to take apart the defenses of the Halberd so its brethren can invade the battleship with ease, the two heroes Kirby and Riku are forced to engage the mechanical creature in combat, which has the unfortunate result of allowing the swarm of Dark Matter to attack more parts of the Halberd than just the deck. A few bits of Dark Matter go for the wings of the ship, since without them it would be incredibly difficult for the Halberd to keep ascending through the pressure of the rift.

With everything going wrong, Meta Knight turns towards the communicator in his left glove and says to every single member of his ship "Aerial Defense Unit, make your way to the wings and stop Dark Matter! Ground troops, go onto the deck and assist Kirby and the Elemental Overlord!"

Meta Knight then swings his left hand off to the side to brush his cape off, saying to the chicken captain of the Halberd "I am going to join the fight. Keep the ship steady until we can fight back all the Dark Matter orbs!"

The stoic warrior then turns around and heads towards the elevator, which senses the movements of its master at the bottom of the cockpit and rises up to catch him. Calmly turning around and drawing his Galaxia in his right hand, Meta Knight descends onto the deck and quickly dashes out onto the battlefield. As he looks forward and sees Kirby firing a shining arrow at the Heavy Lobster while the one called Riku swung his sword to send a wave of fire that cuts through the swathe of missiles that the mechanical creature launches at him.

Meta Knight glances off to the left with a serious disposition to him, noticing that a few Dark Matter orbs are attempting to infiltrate the gash made by the possessed Heavy Lobster's claw. Leaping high into the air, Meta Knight quickly transforms his cape into the fearsome pair of bat wings he is known for having and glides towards the cannon at high speeds, and with a swing of his Galaxia the stoic knight takes down three orbs with one blow and surprises the other bits of the swarm.

Landing in front of the gash on the cannon, Meta Knight regains his cape and swings his blade at the bits of Dark Matter, quietly yet deeply taunting the orbs with a simple utterance of "Come…"

What ensues after this declaration is a flurry of sword strikes around the circumference of Meta Knight's body that tears apart the Dark Matter orbs that try to take control of his body in an attempt to push the warrior away from the front of the gash in the cannon. The Dark Matter that has possessed the Heavy Lobster takes note of the stoic warrior's actions and decides that another option needs to be opened for his brethren to halter the defenses of the Halberd.

Kirby fires another piercing arrow at the head of the Heavy Lobster, though Dark Matter chooses to harden the front of the mechanical body so the arrow clinks right off the surface and stops the star warrior from disabling the robot with one easy shot. When this happens, Kirby quickly turns towards Meta Knight and exclaims to him "Hey Meta Knight, can't you shut down the Heavy Lobster by command?!"

Meta Knight, who was still in the midst of swinging his blade around frequently to stop the Dark Matter swarm's advance, quietly explains to Kirby "I can't disable the Heavy Lobster. We never put in a self-destruct feature since there was no reason to assume that anyone would ever be capable of hijacking it."

"I guess we should have told you about Dark Matter being able to take control of machines before you summoned it, huh?" Kirby points out with a hint of guilt in his voice.

Meta Knight, ever the wise one, responds to Kirby with "Focus on stopping the Heavy Lobster then. As easy as this looks, I cannot keep up with this attack of mine for too long."

Kirby looks at Meta Knight's expression and sees his eyelids twitching to show weakness in his body, and with a nod of his head the star warrior turns back towards the Heavy Lobster and hovers a little higher into the air to try and get a better angle of attack towards the machine. However, in the interval between his last attack and his change in position, the Heavy Lobster turns its left claw towards the other cannon and looks ready to launch it to create another gash.

However, Riku notices the slight movements of the claw as the rest of the Heavy Lobster stays stationary, and with a flick of his left hand he sends a spark of electricity at the joint of the left claw and causes it to short-circuit. With the claw frozen in place, the teenage Overlord glances at Kirby and then gestures his head at the joint of the Heavy Lobster's left claw to signal the star warrior for an attack. Kirby nods his head and then pulls back on the string of his bow, charging up a heart-tipped arrow to the point that it shines as bright as the sun before he fires the arrow straight at the vulnerable joint of the Heavy Lobster's left claw.

The arrow pierces right through the joint in a second, creating a streak of pure light that strikes the deck of the Halberd diagonally below the joint in the process. The arrow was so strong that the joint of the Heavy Lobster was irreversibly destroyed, and the claw of the machine falls against the deck of the battleship with a mighty thud. Kirby, surprised that the attack worked so efficiently, points his bow at the air and lets out a cheerful "Woo-hoo! The Halberd is still safe from harm!"

Riku cocked a slight smile at this tiny little victory, but notices the Heavy Lobster goes strangely silent for a few seconds before suddenly rearing its right claw up and thrusting it straight at the airborne Kirby. Kirby is grabbed by the Dark Matter possessed mechanical entity and quickly drawn towards the Heavy Lobster, whose face is contorted by the effects of the swarm possessing it to show intense anger as the empty space between the claws starts to glow bright red.

The force exerted from the grip of the claw causes Kirby's Angel power-up to be expunged in the form of a star, and the star warrior himself struggles to break free from the claw itself. Riku leaps into the air without hesitation and tries to cut down the right claw through the joint with his sword, but the Dark Matter orbs use the contortion in the machine to fire a short burst of energy from the "mouth" that strikes Riku dead-on in the face and blows him back against the deck of the Halberd. His body bounces twice along the ground before he skids a five feet further away, leading to him lying face first against the ground with his mentally commanded sword lying in front of his right hand as he groans slightly in pain.

Riku lifts his head up quickly and looks at Kirby as the Heavy Lobster continues to charge up a laser, the end of the charging period approaching rapidly as the teenage Overlord notices that with his body now thirty feet away from the machine it would take him too much time to get over there and save Kirby from being hurt. Not even a projectile would cover the required distance in time. The teenage Overlord nonetheless grit his teeth and pushed himself onto his feet and charged forward even after stumbling a bit upon rising, focusing intently on the joint of the Heavy Lobster's right claw as he runs while making the occasional glance at Kirby as the star warrior looks like he is an immense deal of pain thanks to the pincers.

Riku has covered half of the distance, but the crimson light in the claw has grown to fill the entire confines of it. Scowling at his inability to finish covering the distance despite being at his maximum speed at the moment, the teenage Overlord quickly takes his sword and coats it in seething flames, swinging it outright in one fell arc towards the joint of the machine's right claw, knowing all too well that even with his full strength the projectile wouldn't make it in time. But he wouldn't just give up on Kirby, and his diligence would be rewarded thanks to another party.

As Kirby was caught in the claw of the Heavy Lobster, Meta Knight looked on while continuing to swing his sword around rapidly around his body. The Dark Matter swarm refused to cease their actions, making it difficult for the stoic warrior to take action against the machine to help out the star warrior. Meta Knight, with his body becoming weakened by the constant onslaught he unleashed upon the Dark Matter swarm, calmly began to analyze the pattern that the orbs were attacking through, and when he saw a particularly interesting gap in the swarm he closed his eyelids and focused energy into the fabled Galaxia. The blade glowed a pristine golden color as the gap in the swarm began to approach, and with eyelids opening with intense vigor Meta Knight swings Galaxia forward and unleashes a spiked crescent of golden energy at the vulnerable joint of the Heavy Lobster seconds before Riku fired off his attack.

The crescent cuts through the air as well as it could, speeding on past the Dark Matter orbs as Meta Knight swiftly returned to his previous onslaught of sword slashes around his body to take down the swarm. However, that beam sword attack of his drained a lot of his remaining energy, meaning that his slashes came out in a more fatigued manner than before. But it didn't matter, for Meta Knight slyly grinned behind his metallic mask as the attack he fired cuts through the joint of the Heavy Lobster's right claw like butter.

With the claw disconnected from the rest of the mechanical body, the clamp is undone and Kirby is able to leap right out of the falling claw. Riku's flaming scar flies right by the star warrior, but the teenage Overlord cares little about that as he is surprised by Meta Knight's ability to interfere in this battle considering the struggles the warrior was dealing with at this moment.

The energy built up in the Heavy Lobster, now unable to be focused through the right claw, had to go somewhere else entirely, and was thus fired straight out through the broken joint in the form of a giant uncompressed cone. This cone of energy cannot be controlled by the Dark Matter swarm inside of the Heavy Lobster, which makes it all the more ironic that this laser ends up burning apart the second swarm of orbs that were endlessly attacking Meta Knight off to the right. Meta Knight, for the first time in a good minute, could stop swinging his sword and take a momentary breather as watches the energy tear apart the Dark Matter orbs so harshly that the swarm is forced to stop charging in until the energy subsides.

However, the Halberd cannons focus in on the Dark Matter orbs that lie idly by in the air and take them down with a steady barrage of focused lasers. As the remainder of the energy seeps out of the Heavy Lobster and drains it to the point that it was no longer capable of functioning perfectly, Riku watches as Kirby lands on the ground with a bit of a springy recoil to it and quickly runs up to him, saying in a relieved tone of voice "Glad to see you made it through that ordeal alive."

Kirby turns towards Riku after tapping the sides of his throbbing head to calm the pain down, saying in a nonchalant tone of voice "Oh come on now, like I was really in trouble when you and Meta Knight had my back."

Riku lets out a light sigh at Kirby's nonchalance, saying in a subdued tone of joy "Never change Kirby…Never change…"

As Meta Knight stood off in front of the cannon and looked up to see that the Dark Matter orbs were starting to back away from the Halberd, he also saw a good chunk of them moving through the air behind him from the corner of his eye, noticing that they were departing from the wings of the battleship and headed upward into the rift to retreat. "Hmph, so it seems their assault has failed…It seems their numbers aren't as limitless as I was led to believe." Meta Knight notes.

However, after the Dark Matter orbs have departed from the skies above the Halberd, Meta Knight looks down at the Heavy Lobster and notices that despite the rest of its brethren having vanished from sight the Dark Matter possessing the machine has not been expunged quite yet.

"Hmmm?" Meta Knight acknowledged this strange phenomenon with a tilt of his head upward, and slowly began to walk towards the Heavy Lobster as the Halberd continues its ascension.

The Heavy Lobster then creaks as the entire body twitches, and Meta Knight swings Galaxia out beside his body as the machine starts to turn pitch black in its entirety. The darkness forming around the machine begins to ooze upward like the black goop it is. Kirby and Riku take note of this event and stand beside each other as the goop compresses into a spherical form and starts to solidify, a single crease representing an eyelid forming in the center of the orb as the very edge liquefies long enough for strange yellow-orange "petals" to form around the circumference of the orb. The eyelid then widens furious as this strange gigantic mass of Dark Matter looks down upon the deck of the Halberd and summons forth four tiny orbs with tiny eyes around its body from the depths of its mass.

This Dark Matter was different from all other forms of Dark Matter that had been seen beforehand. This one had a corporeal form thanks in part to the fact that it was the prime variant of the conquering swarm, which in a way granted this Dark Matter the title of "Commander" to all other variations of Dark Matter that was born into this universe. Naturally, this creature was also stronger than all the other orbs that came before it, but its reason for taking part in the attack on the Halberd when it was usually content to stick to the shadows and manipulate things from afar was as of now unknown.

"So you are the leader behind all of these attacks." Meta Knight accused as he pointed Galaxia towards the edge of Dark Matter's eye. The orb took little notice towards the stoic warrior, for the fact that the two had never met led Dark Matter to care nothing about the person's words or presence. Dark Matter was fixated entirely on Kirby as it floated in the air above the desecrated Heavy Lobster.

"_Hello again Kirby…It has been a while…" _Dark Matter spoke in an emotionless tone of voice, but unlike its brethren it did not echo with the sound of a thousand voices. It was singular in the way it spoke, and refused to acknowledge any other presences besides the star warrior that has killed it twice over.

Surprisingly, Kirby actually looks at the prime Dark Matter orb with a glare of disgust, discarding his prior naivety as he says to it in a firm tone of voice "What are you still doing alive? Did your minions revive you with Riku's darkness orb?"

"_I have…And always shall continue to be alive…No…The one who was revived was Our Master…" _The prime Dark Matter says to Kirby. The star warrior flinches in shock, saying in a diluted voice of subtle fear "Z-Zero?"

The fact that Kirby was actually scared of the mere mention of Dark Matter's master said a lot about the situation. Even Meta Knight took note of this reaction and said "Kirby? Are you alright?"

Prime Dark Matter continued to speak to the star warrior, saying to him _"Yes…And no…You won't get to know the answer though…Vagueness is all you will live to hear…You are only an obstacle towards our true goal…Kirby…" _

Dark Matter widens its eyes and stares down the Star Warrior with all of its anger, and Riku and Meta Knight both swing their swords as Kirby quickly snaps out of his fear and realizes that he was without any power-ups thanks to Heavy Lobster's earlier efforts. The star warrior turns towards the teenage Overlord and glances over to Meta Knight a second later while simultaneously saying "Sorry to bail on you guys for now, but I need to head back into the Halberd real quick to grab a power-up!"

Kirby then turns around and makes a mad dash for the Halberd's cockpit while Dark Matter glares towards him and with the four tiny orbs circling around its body it begins a hasty pursuit of the star warrior. Riku and Meta Knight shift their bodies around to look at the dark creature, with the teenage Overlord declaring a swift "Hey, he isn't your only opponent here!" and swings his sword in front of his body to send a crescent wave of fire at the backside of the prime Dark Matter.

The creature takes the attack straight on, but barely flinches in response. However, Dark Matter DID feel the attack touch its body and after a momentary pause it turns around and finally takes note of both the red Kirby and Meta Knight. The mysterious red Kirby in particular gets some ire from the prime Dark Matter, who said to him _"…You…No…You aren't a second Kirby…There is something familiar about your presence though…Or rather, what lies within you…Who are you?"_

Riku doesn't acknowledge Dark Matter's interested spiel, recognizing that Dark Matter was probably referring to the darkness within him that was used to revive their master and deciding that he wasn't in the mood to hear another being state that they knew about the Elemental Overlord before he ever came to this world. Brandishing his sword at Dark Matter alongside Meta Knight, Riku states towards the prime Dark Matter "Why don't you stick around and find out?"

"_Hmm…You could pose a threat to my master as well…You and that strange masked warrior with the sword…" _The prime Dark Matter then decides on changing its target for the time being, flipping the orbs beside its body around to face the heroes and continuing to say to them _"Who knows…perhaps your bodies could be used as vessels…" _

The prime Dark Matter launches two of its orbs at the heroes, forcing them to take up their swords and fight back against them with a couple well-timed swings, though for as tiny as the orbs were they were very durable, since they took the attacks head-on without showing any signs of damage on their bodies. Riku and Meta Knight repel the orbs with downward one-handed swings, but as the orbs return beside their master the prime Dark Matter widens its eye and the sky is filled with an inverted neon light as the creature fires within a nanosecond a very thin, distorted bolt of black lightning that strikes the ground directly in front of Riku.

The teenage Overlord flinches in surprise, not just because of how sudden the attack was, but also because the nature of the lightning bolt was something he could not detect in the slightest. Though it looked like electricity, the lightning bolt had a different property to it that was clearly not related to any of the eight elements Riku had in his possession at the moment. Though there was no time to discuss this matter in his mind, for the teenage Overlord noticed the prime Dark Matter advancing forward to get in better range for the next lightning bolt assault.

Riku performs a backflip as another lightning bolt is fired his general direction, while Meta Knight takes a different approach and points Galaxia downward while leaping into the air to see if the black lightning bolt could be reflect on the surface of his blade. As powerful as this blade of legend was though, it was useless against the strange properties of this attack, and as black electricity now coursed through the golden sheen of the blade Meta Knight was forced to briefly let go of his weapon and let it drop on the deck of his ship as he landed.

Once the black electricity departed from Galaxia, Meta Knight quickly stepped forward, picked the sword up by the handle, and swung his cape over his body and twisted it around himself so he could perform a brief teleport a few feet back to avoid another bolt of electricity. With this powerful yet simply attack being dodged so easily, prime Dark Matter chose another approach for this assault and tore off the "petals" surrounding its body, using them as projectiles that predict where the heroes would leap to next and fire straight at them. With ten "petals" surrounding its body, the prime Dark Matter launches five at both heroes.

Riku and Meta Knight both hold their swords at a slant in front of their bodies to block the "petals", but then take the brunt of the black electricity head on afterwards. Their bodies are hit with a scorching heat that didn't feel natural in the slightest, and they are left simmering on the deck of the Halberd a moment later with steam rising out of their bodies and their arms feeling slightly limp. As the two heroes stand there and Dark Matter reforms its petal, Riku can't help but wonder "Geez, what happened to Kirby?" in a quiet tone of voice.

As if right on cue, Dark Matter is suddenly struck in the back by a large bullet shaped projectile, which caused the creature to flinch in pain as his wide-eyed reaction is reflected through the four tiny orbs around his body. Dark Matter turns around to face the being responsible for shooting it in the back, and sees Kirby riding what seems to be a small yet very sleek looking UFO. The front socket of the UFO glows brightly with pure light as the prime Dark Matter quietly says _"So you finally returned to defy me…"_

Kirby smirks at Dark Matter and charges up the laser at the front of the UFO. Prime Dark Matter spins its tiny orbs around its body and rises into the air, with the star warrior taking pursuit to the point where he's level with the monstrosities' body and is able to fire another charged shot towards the eye. However, Dark Matter glides out of the way of the attack, letting one of his orbs get sacrificed to avoid taking too much damage from the projectile. Kirby starts up another charge, but doesn't have to take too much time before firing a thin laser straight at Dark Matter's eye.

The laser hits the pupil directly, causing Dark Matter to flinch in pain for a brief moment. Then the monstrosity uses black light at Kirby, but the high maneuverability of the UFO allows him to glide right out of the way and fire another powerful but thin laser shot straight into Dark Matter's eye. With more pain entering the entity's body, prime Dark Matter pushes the "petals" out of its body and launches them at Kirby from multiple directions to try and prevent the star warrior from dodging out of the way.

But in his UFO Kirby uses an alternate method of dealing with the "petal" projectiles, using the light charge attack of his power-up to summon two small antennas from the slot in the front of his machine that moves downward and creates two small streams of energy in front of his body that burn down the ten petals easily. Prime Dark Matter is annoyed that Kirby is so easily dealing with its attacks, and quickly takes advantage of the UFO's downtime between attacks to fire a quick black lightning shot at Kirby. The right side of the UFO gets blown apart by the bolt, causing the power-up that the star warrior rides in to start malfunctioning and wobble left and right with smoke rising out of the singed machinery.

However, Kirby tries to keep the ship steady as he charges up another shot in the UFO, hoping that this one will be enough to stop the prime Dark Matter specimen in its tracks. Dark Matter knows what the star warrior planned to do though, and quickly prepared to fire off yet another black lightning shock. But Kirby had back-up in two forms, and after recovering from the earlier electric shocks Riku leaps high into the air to reach Dark Matter's backside and with most of his might he performs a downward vertical slash on the creature's skin to create a bright red gash in it.

Meta Knight follows up on this gash after Riku descends from view with a slice of his Galaxia through the air that sends forth a mighty spiked crescent of energy that strikes the gash. The combined attacks from the two heroes impacts the prime Dark Matter specimen so hard that it actually growls out in pain _"Graaaaaahhhhhhh!" _and is prevented from using its black lightning attack. Kirby firms his eyelids and lets loose the final charged shot from his UFO, which travels through the air at light speed and strikes the eye with the full might of his power-up as it is knocked out of Kirby's body.

As the star warrior falls out of the air, the prime Dark Matter takes the full brunt of the final projectile Kirby launched at it and the entire area freezes in place for a moment before a series of starry explosions cover Dark Matter's entire body and its lets out a painful, blood-curling screech that meshes together the noises of its thousands of brethrens into an echoing voice of the entire legion. As it screams so agonizingly in mid-air, its entire body begins to melt apart bit by bit from the bottom of its body, the pitch black essence turning into steam that lasts only a few good seconds before vanishing entirely in the ether of this rift.

In due time all that is left of prime Dark Matter is the eye, which crashes against the deck of the Halberd with a slight splatter and starts to collapse inward upon itself, with the pupil being the first part of this gruesome being to vanish. Eventually Dark Matter has perished, leaving all three heroes to let out a tired sigh of relief on the Halberd. Kirby looks at where the Dark Matter fell and says in a triumphant voice "Good riddance! Woo-hoo!"

Riku grins at Kirby's abundant energy, taking a quick glance over at Meta Knight as the stoic warrior sheathes Galaxia for the time being and keeps no particular expression on his face as he grips both sides of his cape and folds it inward, looking up towards the sky a moment later with a glare in his eyes. The teenage Overlord looks up as well and sees that the rift was starting to reach its end. Though the sky took on a blank dark purple shade, it was quite obvious that the battleship was still in the atmosphere of planet Pop Star, it was just that the pressure of the rift made it difficult for the Halberd to ascend. If the prime Dark Matter's forewarning held true, the REAL controller of Dark Matter, the enigmatic Zero, was waiting for the heroes at the very top of this rift…

_Next Time: The Unexpected Encounter_


	10. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9: The Trickster's Second Act**

With the prime Dark Matter now dealt with for good, the Halbered continues to ascend through the daunting rift created earlier by the orb of darkness that represented Riku's Darkness element. Kirby, Meta Knight and the teenage Overlord himself took a steady breather on the deck, resting up so they'd be in peak condition again when they finally confronted the revived Zero, who supposedly was waiting at the very top of the rift. The Dark Matter swarm had subsided in its entirety when the prime specimen battled the heroes, but despite having a perfect chance to fight the ones who killed one of their controllers they hadn't made a single appearance since then.

Riku walks over to Kirby as the star warrior lies on the side of his body, having fallen asleep rather easily with tiny neon "Z"s floating over his head for some bizarre reason. Knowing that the star warrior wouldn't hold it against him, the teenage Overlord leans forward on his right foot and waves at Kirby, saying to him "Hey Kirby, can you wake up for a moment?"

The "Z"s pop apart from largest to smallest, and Kirby cracks his eyelids open and looks up at Riku with dazed eyes before blinking twice and quickly leaping onto his feet with a strange defiance of physics. The teenage Overlord says to the star warrior "Glad you hadn't fallen into a truly deep sleep. Anyways, I wanted to ask you something."

Widening his mouth as much as physically possible as he lets out a tired if somewhat youthful yawn, Kirby proceeds to say to Riku with a couple smacks of his lips "W-What is it?"

Riku waves his right hand beside his body as he stands back upright on the deck, proceeding to say to the star warrior "I've been feeling something rather weird in the air ever since we defeated Dark Matter. It reminds me of one of my elements, but I can't tell if its the Light one or one of the ones I reclaimed. When you ran into the Halberd to get the UFO power-up did you happen to see anything that looked like one of my element orbs?"

Kirby shook his head, saying to Riku in response to his inquiry "Nah, the only things there were the UFO and Angel power-ups. I'm pretty certain your Light element would be this very bright pearl colored orb or something like that, so it wouldn't be hard to find."

"Well I don't know how else to explain this feeling…" Riku quietly replies to the star warrior's words.

Kirby then proceeds to say to the boy "Think of it this way. If Meta Knight had your Light element, then he would have likely given it back to you by now since he knows how the orbs work. Meta Knight may keep to himself at times, but there is usually a method to his actions."

The star warrior gazes off to the side and chuckles nervously, saying in a whisper "Usually…" as he remembers the time Meta Knight tried to take over Dream Land with the very ship they are riding now.

"I probably should ask him though, just to be safe." Riku says to Kirby after the star warrior has finished recollecting past events.

"It wouldn't do any harm, if it will clear your mind of any doubts." Kirby said in a surprisingly mature tone of voice. The teenage Overlord nods his head in agreement, and quickly turns around to look at the stoic warrior as he stands at the left edge of the deck with his cape folded at the center of his chest.

Riku walks over to Meta Knight, his footsteps creating a loud enough noise that before he opens his mouth the stoic warrior asks "Is there something you need, Elemental Overlord?"

Riku flinches in surprise. Despite knowing how cautious the famed Meta Knight, he was still taken aback by just how observant the warrior was in person, and after retracting his right hand he decided to cut the small talk and speak to Meta Knight in a mature tone befitting the warrior's personality. "Meta Knight, did you happen to run across an orb of pure light between seeing Dark Matter for the first time and showing up at Castle Dedede?"

Meta Knight swiftly responds with a simple "No" and Riku nods his head and replies to that singular word with a appreciative "Alright, just thought I'd ask."

Riku turns around and prepares to depart, but is stopped by Meta Knight only a second after he spoke. "Hold on a moment, there is something I wish to ask you."

Riku pauses in surprise, letting out a light "Hmmm?" before glancing over his shoulder and watching as Meta Knight removes his arms from his cape and turns around to look at the boy. In Meta Knight's right hand is Galaxia, which he drew from a mysterious location.

"Draw your sword, warrior." Meta Knight said, his tone filled with a strange lack of animosity in his voice despite the words he used.

Riku, batting an eyelid at the warrior's sentence, nonetheless pointed his right hand forward and summoned his helix bladed weapon, which floated in front of the tip of his hand with the help of his mind. Meta Knight looked at the sword for a good few seconds before looking back at his own, saying to the teenage Overlord a mere moment later "Hmm…It seems our swords have some things in common."

"How so?" Riku asks with his head slightly tilted to the right and a look of curiosity on his face.

Meta Knight moves Galaxia around in the air, looking at it as he says to the boy "Both of our swords are linked to our wills. If you've noticed, I don't wear a sheath on my body. Have you ever wondered why that is?"

The teenage Overlord doesn't need to think too long about that, and says to Meta Knight "Do you summon Galaxia with your mind like I do with my sword?"

Meta Knight responds with a simple nod, and proceeds to say to Riku after sheathing the blade with a thought and a push of his right hand into his cape "It takes a strong mind to control Galaxia. I don't know the sword's specific origin, but I have carried it with me for hundreds of years and have learned that single fact about it. The more focused you are while using Galaxia, the stronger your attacks will be. With what little combat I have seen you in, I can tell that your sword operates in a very similar manner."

Meta Knight stares at Riku, saying to him as he points at the sword he holds before his right hand "But its interesting how your sword doesn't have a handle. Why is that?"

Riku holds the sword in front of his eyes, rolling it back and forth in the air as he glares at it and says to the stoic warrior "I don't know what to tell you Meta Knight. This weapon is a complete mystery to me for the most part."

"Did you acquire it recently?" Meta Knight asks with a hint of curiosity in his voice.

Riku shakes his head and says to the warrior "No. This sword has been with me ever since I was born. I just haven't gotten a good chance to figure out how to master this sword. All I know for certain is that it acts like a conduit for my elemental energy, and if I concentrate hard enough it allows me to change into different forms that amplify the efficiency of a single elemental power\."

"Hmm…How curious." Meta Knight remarks.

The stoic warrior then looks at Riku with a firm glare, causing the boy to blink twice as he looks over the sharp edge of his sword as he lowers it. "All I can really say to you is that even if you don't know how to operate the sword, you should treat it with the utmost respect. A bond, even between a living being and an inanimate object, can lead to beneficial results for both parties."

Riku dispels his sword for the time being and looks at Meta Knight, saying to him in a puzzled tone of voice "How come you are giving me this advice?"

Meta Knight says to the teenage Overlord "It is easy to recognize a rookie when you fight beside him. You may have a lot of power inside of your body, but you haven't learned how to control it to the best of your ability. You use your powers in very simple ways, but you already addressed why that is. As a fellow warrior, I felt as though it was right to offer a little advice to help you out. Unlike Kirby, who has always had a natural talent to him, you require some training to hone your skills to the fullest extent. When we have defeated Dark Master, I would be more than willing to train you in the ways of the sword."

Though Meta Knight was being genuine in what he was offering, the teenage Overlord smiled at him and said "Thanks for that, but if I have to be honest if I have to learn how to use my sword…I'll do it by myself."

Meta Knight nods his head, saying to the boy after he made his heartfelt request "I shall respect your wishes. But if you change your mind for any reason, then let me know."

Riku nods his head in agreement, and after this conversation has ended Meta Knight turns back towards the edge of the deck while the teenage Overlord turns around and walks back to the center. He then looks up towards the sky and notices how the dark, foggy edge of the rift was starting to vanish. The blank, dark purple sky at the top of the rift also began to change, with strange ultraviolet distortions appearing along the air. And as the Halberd passes the rim of the top of the rift the hole seals up instantly, with the ground suddenly becoming covered in various black hexagons with multicolored edges.

Meta Knight looks down at his left hand and says to the captain "Land the ship here, the ground appears to be stable."

Obeying his superior officer's wishes, the chicken captain begins to shut down the engines of the Halberd, the roar of the rockets in the back dying out as the massive battleship hovers above the floor that has been created below it before finally settling on the ground. With the Halberd now in place, Meta Knight says to the captain "Wait for us here. Tell everyone to prepare for self-defense in case of another enemy attack."

With his left hand swung beside his body after he has given his order, Meta Knight summons Galaxia in his right hand and immediately leaps off the side of the Halberd, summoning his wings to help with his descent. Kirby walks up to the edge of the Halberd alongside Riku, and after nodding their heads at each other they leap off the mighty battleship and land on the ground behind Meta Knight. With all three heroes gathered at the foot of the Halberd, they proceed to walk along this strange landscape in search of Zero.

It doesn't take very long for the heroes to such a long distance away from the Halberd that they can't even see it after they turn back, but nonetheless they keep walking straight ahead to try and find any sign of life. The eerie silence of this mysterious landscape put all three heroes on guard, especially Kirby, who didn't currently have a power-up with him. "You know, this place doesn't remind me at all of anything Dark Matter has created before." Kirby says.

"Rainbow colors, ultraviolet background? You're right Kirby, you would think something as gruesome as Zero would create a desolate area with red and black objects." Riku points out in response to Kirby's attentive comment.

Meta Knight glances back at the two heroes, saying in a stoic voice "And if you recall, the barrier around the Halberd could only be destroyed by something that wasn't related to Dark Matter."

Riku and Kirby both face Meta Knight, with the star warrior pointing out as they walk "Wait, are you suggesting that Zero isn't our opponent? But nobody else knows how to control Dark Matter."

"Hahaha! Actually, that's not exactly true, Kirby!" A cackling, demented shriek filled this almost empty void, causing the heroes to turn forward and face the air in front of them. Kirby's eyes widen, and for a rather good reason.

Floating down from the distorted atmosphere above is a nightmarish creature with a light violet body with widened furious eyes and a wide two fanged grin with an elongated tongue. Atop his head was a hat with two colors, with dark magenta on the left and sky blue on the right, the pompoms on both sides being rather spiky in design. The being wore brown shoes with pointy ends, and a tarnished gold necklace wrapped around his neck. On both sides of the body were disjointed dark red wings with three claws attached between the single joint and the body. The joints had bright blue hearts attached, and the membranes of the wings were represented by thin different colored hexagons that flickered in and out of existence with each passing second.

As this creature flapped his wings and floated a good ten feet off of the ground, Kirby stared at him in disbelief and said with a stutter in his voice "M-M-Marx?"

"Awwwww…You remembered me Kirby! How touching…Or it would be, if you hadn't killed me beforehand!" The bat-winged creature named Marx exclaims in a wickedly twisted tone of voice, the animosity amidst his insanity being as clear as day as he let out an echoing cackle.

"But its ok, I don't hold it against you…Much." Marx says, his wide-eyed expression not changing in the slightest. It was rather creepy how he floated in the eye with such insanity on his face. He was like a zombie, and that made his presence in this realm after encountering Dark Matter all the more unsettling.

"How are you still alive?" Kirby says, his tone becoming incredibly serious all of a sudden as he questions Marx about how he came back to life.

Marx laughs as he looks down at the three heroes, and he proceeds to say to them all in an unhinged tone of voice "Oh there is a LOVELY story behind my return, and a miraculous one at that!"

"_It all started when you defeated me so, SO long ago…my body was launched back into the depths of space, where I crashed into NOVA and destroyed it, spreading its parts above the atmosphere of Dream Land. But even though the wish granting entity was destroyed, its purpose still lingered on…My wish, to conquer Pop Star in its entirety, still needed to be fulfilled, and even in its destruction NOVA worked to make my wish a reality! NOVA gave me its power and revived me in this new form, making me stronger than I could ever have hoped to be before!_

_But that wasn't enough…Hehehe, oh no, NOVA didn't just give me a new body to work with! Not long after I was revived, I was greeted by these dark black orbs that swarmed to me and submitted to my will almost instantly! They bowed before me, calling me their master in unison! Oh how glorious it felt to have an army of dark creatures under my command after my amazing revival! It was fantastic, I was so excited by all of this that I had to take advantage of it!_

_I used these 'Dark Matter' orbs for various purposes! I unleashed them on other planets, seeing just how efficiently they could conquer them and laughing at the misery of the people as they ran and screamed! Oh Kirby you should have been there…Well scratch that, you likely would have ruined my fun if you were there. But after having so much fun with the Dark Matter orbs, I decided to return to Dream Land to conquer it for myself, this time with this added power and army at my disposal! And what better way to celebrate my return than by turning you into dust, Kirby?!"_

With his explanation at an end, Marx burst into echoing cackles once more, his elongated tongue emerging from his mouth as his eyes remained in the same positions as always, adding to the frightening aspect of his insanity until he eventually stops laughing and looks down at the three heroes. Meta Knight, with Galaxia swung beside his body, says to the demented Marx "You aren't in control of Dark Matter. Just like Dedede, they are simply manipulating you, and you don't even realize it."

Marx glares at this masked warrior and says to him in a puzzled tone of voice "And just who are you supposed to be? Kirby's super-serious cousin or something stupid like that? Whoever you are, you don't understand anything! I am in control of Dark Matter! They obey my whims and mine alone! And once you are done with I will use them to conquer Dream Land without opposition! Then I can have fun with the populace to my hearts' content, heheHE!"

The use of the word 'fun' sickened Kirby and Riku, who looked at Marx with utter disgust in their eyes. The star warrior said to the demented creature "Did coming back to life warp your mind, or were you always this twisted?"

"Is there anything wrong with either answer? What's twisted in your view is normal for me, and vice versa, etc etc etc…Enough talk! It won't take long for me to finally be done with you and your precious Dream Land, Kirby!" Marx, with one last declaration born for his insanity, begins to flap his wings rapidly in the air as he lets out a hallowed shriek.

Riku draws his sword ready to fight the demented creature, but as he stares at him he feels this incredibly unnatural chill creeping down what little spine he had in this body. This feeling mixed with the earlier sensation he had that reminded him of one of his elements was uncomfortable on the teenage Overlord's psyche, as he thought to himself _"Don't tell me…Did Marx somehow get a hold of my Light element? Or am I sensing something else entirely? …This can't be good." _These questions lingered on Riku's mind as he prepared for battle against Marx alongside his two comrades…

_Next Time: Falling Hour_


	11. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10: Marx Soul**

Marx starts off the battle with an unhinged cackle as he opens his mouth and lets his elongated tongue drape forward. With a flap of his wings the demonic creature takes flight into the sky, forcing the heroes to glance up until the point where they could no longer see him, at which point they looked at each other and nodded their heads, leaping apart from their admittedly packed together group so Marx couldn't pick all of them off with one fell swoop. Kirby was without a power-up, which made him feel incredibly defenseless at the moment. But he couldn't figure out a way to get one that wouldn't require a massive detour back to the Halberd.

With a streak of light coming from the sky that goes right through the star warrior harmlessly, Kirby realizes that Marx was about to descend upon him and quickly dashes forward as a gap is opened up in the ground below where he once stood and the undead Marx streaks down through the sky at high-speeds with his head pointed face first towards the ground. Marx dips into the gap with ease despite his wings being wider than the hole's width, and just as soon as he descended he disappears as the gap closes shut.

Kirby takes a momentary breather after running away from Marx's attack, but then looks on ahead and notices as a streak of light appears below both Riku and Meta Knight. It doesn't take more than a mere second for another streak to appear below him. The star warrior wonders just which streak Marx will emerge from, and tries to dash out of the way of the light before he is caught by the attack. However, unlike before the streak follows his movements perfectly, something the other two heroes take note of as they hold their swords behind their bodies and charge up energy within for a possible counterattack if they end up being designated as the targets of Marx's wrath.

After three more seconds the streaks disappear and on cue Riku and Meta Knight instinctively leap back while Kirby jumps forward. Three gaps emerge from where the heroes once stood, but instead of Marx appears from these gaps the sky is instead flushed with three large inverted neon beams of light that look similar in appearance to the one that assaulted the Halberd not too long ago. With the heroes now getting an answer for who was able to destroy the barrier, Riku and Meta Knight in particular disperse the energy they built up in their swords and wait for Marx's return with a cautious glance around this dimension.

The glow of the beams of light fade away, and while Kirby is relieved that he didn't get caught up a single one despite being stuck between all three of them he knew he wouldn't be able to last very long unless he got a power-up. With the situation making it a little easier to think in spite of his panic, the star warrior proceeds to exclaim to the teenage Overlord "Hey Riku, think you can toss me an element to use in this battle?!"

Riku, having been broken out of his partially cautious state by Kirby's statement, glances at him with a puzzled glare before realizing how barren the star warrior's body is at the moment and with a stutter he says "O-Oh yeah, you really should be equipped with a power-up. I think you'd probably do fine with-" As Riku raises his left hand into the air and prepares to create a condensed elemental sphere for the star warrior to absorb Marx suddenly tears through a gap behind the teenage Overlord and with a maniacal look in his eyes he swings his right claws through the air, striking Riku hard in the back before even Meta Knight had a chance to notice the zombie's presence.

The attack is applied with enough force that Riku is launched forward into the air, his body flying right over Kirby as he tumbles about. The star warrior turns his head around and watches as the teenage Overlord descends onto the ground, his body bouncing a good ten feet away via a few good impacts with the floor before he finally stops moving and lies face first against the ground. Kirby and Meta Knight both turn towards Marx, who laughs maniacally as he floats in the air.

Meta Knight wastes no time in leaping at the undead monstrosity, but fails to connect with a swing of Galaxia as Marx is enveloped by a bright blue light and vanishes from view. After spinning once through the air the stoic warrior lands and glances back and forth immediately, sensing a breath hint of Marx's presence lingering in the air as he remains stationary. Meta Knight gestures at Kirby with his head, in that manner telling him to go check up on the teenage Overlord while he deals with Marx. The star warrior recognizes the cue and turns around, dashing off in a matter of seconds as Meta Knight firms his glare and waits for the undead monster to reappear, seeing as his presence was still noticeable in the air around him.

Marx reappeared behind Meta Knight seconds later, but the stoic warrior turns around and slashes at the creature's faces with a few perfectly timed cuts before the zombie could react in time. Meta Knight simultaneously leapt back to avoid any counterattack from Marx. Though a couple scratches appeared on the undead monster's face, he didn't appear very affected by them. He tilted his head in and annoyed manner and said to the masked warrior "You know what, I don't really like you. You are pretty much the definition of anti-fun."

Meta Knight doesn't respond verbally to the cheaply spoken insult Marx tossed his way and after sensing how distracted the undead monster was the masked warrior quickly lunged at Marx and swung his sword in a forward arc with enough strength to do more than a few scars worth of damage to his foe. However, Marx quickly teleports away with the same type of light as before. This time however he reappears a fair distance away from Meta Knight with his cheeks puffed out, and after a few mere seconds he opens his mouth and fires a powerful laser blast from within.

Meta Knight swings his cape over his body and does a brief teleporting motion onto the ground a few feet away from the path of the beam, which carves through this strange ground and creates a tear that could not be repaired, the vast gap being filled with a pure black essence that looked similar to the prime Dark Matter the heroes had fought earlier. Meta Knight takes advantage of the weariness caused by Marx's attack to slash his sword forward and send out a spiked wave of energy that grows in size with each passing second until it is roughly twice the size of Marx's face and thus causes the undead monster to be pushed back through the air until the attack bursts.

However, though Marx appeared to be fazed by this attack his body quickly vanishes, causing Meta Knight to flinch momentarily in shock as he still had Galaxia held in front of his body, and the brief moment of weakness he showed allowed the undead monster to appear above him with ease. Marx swooped down and swung his wings in front of his body, and after he extended his claws out to the best of his ability he latched them around Meta Knight's body. The masked warrior, despite feeling the claws digging into his skin from behind, tried to raise Galaxia high enough to stab Marx through the head.

The undead monster saw through Meta Knight's attempt at defying him and quickly sent a negative energy influenced thousand volts of electricity through his body to zap the masked warrior for a good ten seconds. Having been trained not to scream at even the slightest hint of pain, Meta Knight endured the electricity for as long as his body could take it, but was nonetheless paralyzed by the time Marx had his fill. With the masked warrior now at his mercy, Marx laughed maniacally before raising Meta Knight into the air, defying how his wings should logically be jointed to his body before bringing the masked warrior down against the ground with a mighty slam, his wings motioning with the force of a hammer as the front of Meta Knight's mask takes the full brunt of the impact.

Marx repeatedly slams Meta Knight against the ground, unnaturally enjoying every second of pain he inflicts upon the masked warrior as he continues his assault. It didn't take long for the other heroes to defy Marx's might, as moments later a wave of flame followed by a large spherical bolt of electric plasma collides against the side of the monster's body, both attacks creating separate explosions that cloud him in smoke. In rapid succession, these two attacks cause Marx to wince just enough that his grip on Meta Knight is released and the masked warrior falls harmlessly against the ground.

Marx brushes his left wing through the smoke to dispel it and looks forward at both Kirby and the mysterious red Kirby. Kirby was now green with a crown of sparkling green electricity atop his head, signifying the fact that he obtained the Plasma power-up with the help of Riku's electricity element.

"I still say you should have gotten Spark from that…" Riku notes to Kirby as he pulls his sword back and stares through the air straight at the insane Marx.

Kirby holds his hands in front of his body and rubs them together, the green sparks around his body conforming into the shape of a barrier that steadily grows in size as the star warrior says to the boy "I can't complain. Plasma was the power I used to defeat Marx last time. Its really effective on him for some reason…"

After charging up another attack to its maximum strength, the shield around Kirby grows to encompass his body and he launches another plasma sphere at Marx that was the same size as the last. But after Marx recovers from the prior two attacks he takes his right claw and swings it at the orb, cutting it into four pieces with ease much to Kirby's surprise. "…Well, it WAS effective." The star warrior says sarcastically as he blinks his eyelids twice in disbelief.

Marx looks over at the two heroes with insanity gleaming in his eyes, and after letting out his tongue he cackles and says "You two are so pesky! Pesky pesky pesky!" As impossible as it sounded, he had become even MORE unhinged compared to the way he was asking before.

Marx then holds his wings at a horizontal angle and glides forward at the heroes, covering the distance between them in five seconds as the two heroes tumble away in opposite directions under the assumption that they would be struck by the undead monster's attack. However, Marx passes above them and then turns around after making a sudden stop five feet away from the heroes, performing a flap of his wings to send a rain of tiny arrows in the direction of both heroes.

Riku holds his sword in front of his body and spins it around rapidly like a helicopter rotor, going so fast that not a single arrow is able to make it through his defenses. But the repeated impact, even though the arrows are so tiny, causes his body to get pushed back slowly but surely. Kirby holds his left hand above his head and causes a ton of friction to quickly create a plasma shield that blocks all of the arrows while also giving him another means of attack once Marx's onslaught comes to an end.

The star warrior wastes no time in thrusting his hands forward after the arrows vanish, pointing the large plasma sphere at Marx in hopes of hitting him square in the face. However, the demonic creature vanishes without a trace like he has so many times before. But instead of reappearing and striking the heroes from behind Marx instead goes for a different route and drops from the sky a ring of strange brown seeds that all plant into the ground at the same time.

A mysterious force causes the seeds to grow into tall lanky vines with a multitude of metallic spikes plastered around their forms that prevent all escape within the circular cage they create with their existence. Kirby and Riku look left and right in a futile attempt to find a gap, and the teenage Overlord tries to control the vines with his powers after failing to notice any means of easy escape. The fact that the plants come from an unnatural source prevents him from easily controlling them, and he gives up after a good few seconds.

Riku then dashes forward and swings his flaming sword in a diagonal arc, but the vines were surprisingly durable enough to survive something that should naturally be its weakness. "You have got to be kidding me…" The teenage Overlord says with his teeth grit in panic.

Riku then looks back into the distorted sky and notices that Marx has reappeared at the top of the vines. With a echoing cackle, the undead beast suddenly freezes in place unexpectedly. Then the strange part occurs, as Marx's body split right down the middle, with both halves going in opposite directions vertically. A light suction can be felt in the air coming from the sky as Marx performs this action, and mere seconds later something akin to a black hole appears from the center of both halves of Marx's body. The undead monster then vanishes into the ether as the black hole rapidly increases its suction power.

Despite the vines not being weak enough to be cut through, they were just weak enough for Riku to quickly lunge his sword forward and puncture it deep enough to give him a safe means of keeping himself on the ground. The teenage Overlord looks back at Kirby and says to him "Grab my hand, we need to endure this!" The star warrior dashes at the boy and latches his right hand around his extended left hand, planting his feet as firmly into the ground as physically possible as the black hole reaches maximum suction.

Kirby's body quickly starts to rise into the air while Riku's feet are loosening on the ground. _"Shoot…This black hole is tough! But it doesn't last too long, I should be able to…"_

Riku reassures himself with a confident thought, but it only takes a mere couple seconds for Kirby's grip to loosen to the point that he pulled right away from the teenage Overlord's body and sent hurtling towards the black hole itself. The boy exclaims in frightened panic "NO, KIRBY!"

As he watches Kirby fly helplessly towards the black hole that would be the advent of his demise, Riku starts having traumatic flashbacks of the hero he failed to save before, the one who was left to die on a doomed planet…And though his heart started to feel heavy he quickly clenched his eyelids tightly and thrust his left hand into the air, refusing to let events repeat themselves once more as he creates his own air vacuum in the opposite direction of the black hole's pull, creating a space in between both forces that traps Kirby in place in the center of them both.

But no matter how hard Riku focused, he couldn't create a force stronger than the black hole's, whose strength increases with each passing second. The boy grimaces in pain and says to himself "You can do this Riku…If you save the life of a second hero you can finally get over this pain…"

He tried to deny the inevitable truth of this scenario, that his powers were not sufficient enough to save Kirby's life and the star warrior would be drawn in and killed. The gruesome imagery brought on by this inevitably echoes in Riku's mind, followed by an imagining of Kirby's dying screams that were so off-putting considering the star warrior's usual nonchalance and optimism. With desperation clinging to the teenage Overlord's body, he proclaims out to the empty realm "PLEASE, HEAR MY CALL! WHOEVER IS LISTENING, PLEASE SAVE KIRBY!"

Outside the vines, Meta Knight finally regains consciousness after Marx's earlier assault and pushes himself onto his feet. Though he was a bit weary, he still had Galaxia in his right hand. The masked knight then looks forward and notices a slight crack in his mask caused by Marx's attack. Rubbing it with his left hand, he remarks quietly "Hmph…"

Remembering the battle he was a part of, the masked knight turns his head to the left and sees both the black hole in the sky and the cage of vines keeping Kirby and Riku trapped. With an urgent widening of his eyes, Meta Knight prepares to dash forward to save the two heroes from disaster, but is instead greeted by something unexpected yet fantastic to behold. Past the vine cage appears the black silhouette of a large bipedal creature that is just as tall as the vines. With a draconic roar the creature pushes against gravity and wraps its gauntlet covered right claw around the black hole, suppressing it with incredible ease.

Two seconds later, the claw shines with a negative black light, and as Meta Knight looks towards the claw he watches as the light shines up through the air and strikes the invisible Marx to reveal him. But that wasn't the only thing Meta Knight saw. Floating above the undead abomination was another figure, but the masked warrior was unable to get a good enough look at his appearance before the light faded away. In a blink of an eye, the draconic silhouette has vanished along with the black hole, and Marx re-emerges from his cloak with an outraged look in his eyes.

The abomination swoops down towards the ground while the vines finally die, and Kirby is caught by gravity and starts falling towards the ground. Though the warrior didn't weigh very much, Riku dispels his sword for a moment and dashes forward, leaping up and catching the star warrior with both hands and swiftly landing down on the ground safe and sound. Riku lets Kirby land on the ground, and as his heart beats fast he thinks to himself with a surprised look in his eyes _"What the heck was that silhouette? D-Did I do that somehow?"_

Marx appears a few feet away from both heroes, his eyes widened in frenzy as he flaps his wings rapidly and exclaims madly "No no no NO! You should both be dead! Curses curses curses curses! I hate you both now! I want you both dead!"

Marx was losing all remaining traces of his mentality, something that just made him all the more dangerous to fight as he pulled his wings outright beside his body and stretches his tongue out, salivating acid from within his mouth as he proceeds to exclaim to the cautious heroes "WHICH ONE OF YOU WANTS TO DIE FIRST?!"

Suddenly, Meta Knight appears beside Marx, and the stoic warrior says as an answer to the monster's question "You first." Before the abomination can deal with Meta Knight, the masked warrior takes his cape and swings it over Marx's body, and time begins to slow down across the entire realm as the undead monster is entrapped within the dimension of the cape.

Darkness envelops the realm, a few galaxy-like sparks filling the air and causing the outline of a spherical creature above Marx to appear for a brief moment before everyone is robbed of their vision. A mere moment later, everything return back to normal as Meta Knight lands on the ground in front of Marx with Galaxia held beside his body and a mighty slash of light carving diagonally through the air…Above Marx?

The target of Meta Knight's attack confused both Kirby and Riku for but a brief moment, as a painful sounding snap echoes through the air four times over and without warning Marx's eyes turn white and his body collapses onto the floor with a mighty impact worthy of his girth. This impact knocks Marx unconscious, and Meta Knight quickly turns around to face the abomination with Galaxia still extended beside his body.

Before Kirby and Riku can question what just happened, Meta Knight says to the space above Marx "Reveal yourself."

Everything is silent for a few uneasy seconds before all of a sudden Marx's wings rise up, followed by the front of his face and then the rest of his body as well. Marx is lifted into the air like a puppet as a thin white outline starts to form in the air above the abomination…Revealing to the heroes yet another abomination who is controlling Marx's movements with white, organic-like strings. It was a daunting white sphere similar in shape to Dark Matter, but with an emotionless red eye filled to the brim with blood. It has segmented wings that look like broken blood veins mixed with nightmarish feathers along with a pointed tail at the bottom of its body, a bandage atop its head and a very off-putting halo glowing a pale yellow glow atop his head.

The abomination flapped its wings once as Marx was dragged closer towards his body by the strings connected to the joints of his wings, as with his black pupil directing its gaze towards the star warrior Kirby reacts with a frightened murmur of "So you are alive…Zero…"

_Next Time: What Zero Seeks_


	12. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11: 0****2**

The monster was back. The ultimate nightmare that has ever come to show itself on Dream Land and the only creature Kirby has ever feared in his life, Zero, was alive before his very eyes in his winged state with the almost equally nightmarish Marx having his unconscious body dragged closer with the most abnormal looking strings that were connected to Zero's wings. The pale entity glared down at the three heroes with an emotionless bloody eye, doing nothing but that until it looked towards the masked warrior and saw the golden sword in his hand, at which point it lightly grimaced, something only Meta Knight picks up on as Zero reverts back to its normal posture and looks towards Kirby to address his earlier sentence.

"_Kirby…You are still alive…" _Zero mutters out in a blank tone devoid of any and all emotions as Marx is finally stopped just inches from the bottom of the monster's body. Then the organic strands attached to Zero that were used to control Marx begins to twirl the undead creature around, wrapping him up slowly in a cocoon that starts at the tip of his wings and moves inward towards the main body. The cocoon is created without any concern for the safety of both figures, and with how tight Zero makes it some green ooze is squeezed out from Marx that spreads along the bindings of the cocoon and quickly dries.

Zero barely has to invest any focus into dealing with Marx, and thus is able to keep speaking to the heroes as they stare with disgusted eyes at the pale nightmare's actions. "Hey, what do you think you are doing to Marx?!" Riku proclaims as he slashes his sword through the air to ignite the blade before aiming it at Zero, simultaneously thinking to himself that its strange that he'd feel even an ounce of pity towards Marx at this very moment.

Zero doesn't address the mysterious red Kirby's inquiry, for he only wanted to hear the real Kirby speak to him. Kirby looks up at Zero with intense disgust and says in disbelief "I don't get it, how can you still be alive? Ribbon and I destroyed you above Ripple Star and put an end to Dark Matter for good."

"_You can never truly be rid of us, Kirby." _Zero immediately responds, causing Kirby to look up with a surprised glare and a simple utterance of "What?" as the back of the pale creature's flesh starts to bubble, and from this emerges a few orbs of Dark Matter that quickly move to the front of their master's body as he finishes wrapping Marx in a cocoon.

Connected by the mind, the two forces didn't have to speak to give and receive commands, and the Dark Matter orbs attach themselves to the cocoon as the strands are snapped off from the rest of Zero's body and quickly fly off into the realm with the cocoon for reasons unknown. Zero then focused back on Kirby and says to him _"When you defeated me that day, it is true that most of our kind perished…But those that survived scattered across the universe to preserve themselves until the time came for us to return."_

"_While my agents remained dispersed, I was in the midst of restoring my body to this state, and only with every last bit of anti-matter in the area was I able to complete the process. But I was a blank husk who could not move, and needed just a little more power to return to my former state of control. After discovering that one of our more powerful remaining agents, Dark Nebula, had been destroyed by you, Dark Matter went to retrieve his essence and brought him to me. I fed on his remains and regained consciousness, and learned everything I needed to about what you had done ever since you killed me…"_

"_It was after my revival that I desired to bring your planet to its knees. But with prior methods having failed to work I chose to do something different, and that was a subtle infiltration of your planet's populace. But before my minions could do my work for me, I had to first choose a new face that would prevent you from realizing that I myself had returned. Using the memories Dark Nebula had fed into my body, I learned of the corpse of the one called Marx that floated somewhere above Pop Star and brought my Dark Matter orbs with me to find him. But the undead creature was starting to show signs of awakening when we found him floating adrift a few remains of the celestial entity NOVA."_

"_Thus I took control of his body before he awakened, using his mind to make him believe that he was in control of Dark Matter while simultaneously manipulating my servants from behind in an invisible guise. Then we tricked his body into believing that he had conquered many worlds so he be none the wiser towards our purposes. With a disguise under our control we proceeded to plant the seeds of usurpation upon your world, starting with your hierarchy and working deep towards your strongest warriors…A plan which unsurprisingly backfired."_

Zero turns his glare towards Meta Knight, and the masked warrior is quick to the point in saying to the pale monster "Enough with the lies…What is your true goal?"

"_Haha…" _Zero flaps his wings once and lets out a hollow laugh, saying to the masked warrior in response to his question _"That's right…You managed to extract information from one of my spawn…"_

Zero looks down upon the three heroes and says to them _"I have grown sick of dying to you Kirby. You and that cheerful smile that you share with this populace, the emotions you carry within…They sicken me. But I lack the power necessary to stop you, I have come to realize that with each encounter…This world of yours is tainted by many artifacts of joy and dreams, all of which prove to be my antithesis'. But there is one artifact in particular that I know exists on this world that I wish to use for myself, and the rift that Dark Matter opened allowed the swarm I had been building to ravage your very planet in search of that artifact."_

"_So far there have been no results, but there is not much of your planet left to search. If not on the ground, then perhaps in the sky…Nevertheless, I will find what I seek, and once I do everything you know about me shall return to what it was before anyone gazed upon my visage. To accomplish this task, however, I ironically thought that I would require the use of the very other artifacts that I loathe…But then everything changed when a mysterious comet descended upon your planet and spread strange colored orbs across the world."_

The end of Zero's latest paragraph led Riku's eyes to widen in panic, and with a quiet whisper of "Oh no…" as he realizes the implications that the pale monster was mentioning he watched as the bottom left part of Zero's body began to bubble as a bright pearl-white glow begins to emerge from within the confines of his form. The source of this light is revealed to be the final elemental orb that Riku has been seeking, which surprisingly does little to hurt Zero's body despite past experiences showing him that darkness has a weakness towards the element.

Riku, with his blade still on fire, swings at Zero and launches a wave of fire at the part of his body behind where the orb was traveling to in an attempt to break his concentration and force the orb from his mental grasp. But Zero waves the orb in front of the attack to block it without harming the orb at all, saying to the mysterious red Kirby afterwards _"I can only assume that this is yours."_

The teenage Overlord grits his teeth as he keeps his sword swung on the opposite side of his body and immediately proclaims to Zero "How are you not harmed by my Light element?! You are a creature of darkness, the light is poison to your kind!"

"…_Is that what you really believe?" _Zero says in a surprisingly piercing tone of voice. _"I am not like the Dark Matter I create…I have always existed as nothingness. Light and darkness mean nothing to me…The only reason those pure artifacts on this could harm me is because they represent something I can never show, and that is emotion." _

"If neither light or darkness matter to you, then give me back that elemental orb!" Riku says, his anger at Zero's words overriding his usual reasoning as he exclaims that sentence.

Zero merges the orb of light back into his body through the bubbling flesh in his underside, all the while saying to the mysterious red Kirby _"This is but an exception to my beliefs…As this is the only object of purity on this world that I can touch I need it for whenever my servants uncover the artifact I desire. Whoever you are, this matter does not concern you."_

Riku slants his eyebrows and swings his sword in front of his body, igniting the blade as he gives Zero a vicious glare and says to him "Wrong answer, monster."

The teenage Overlord then turns towards Kirby, who has been strangely silent for quite some time, and says to him in a tone loud enough to snap him out of his deep thoughts "Kirby! Come on now, you've beaten Zero enough times by now! You should have no reason to be afraid of him, so lets just kick his butt like you always do and put an end to Dark Matter for good this time!"

Kirby glances over at the teenage Overlord and nods his head in agreement, firming his stare as he turns and looks at Zero, who merely flaps his wings once and says to the three heroes _"There is no end to us…We are forever…Just as it began with zero, all shall end with zero…You three shall simply be subtracted from the whole before that moment comes."_

Zero then flaps his wings more than once, signifying his decision to fight the three heroes in their entirety. Though he was outnumbered, Zero could not feel fear for his life, not only because of his personality, but also because death has claimed him twice over. As such, when his pupil glowed bright for just a brief moment and he summoned forth a hail-like bombardment of blood red fire from the skies above he knew exactly what he was getting into. The bombardment had no particular target in mind at first glance, it rained down indiscriminately across this strange dimension, filling the air with fire and heated crackles.

Riku had little difficulty with brushing the fire aside with a swing of his left hand, but he could only focus on himself and was unable to help Kirby or Meta Knight without opening himself up to getting scorched by the fire. The star warrior fortunately had no qualms with being forced to help himself, seeing as the Plasma ability allowed him the perfect combination of attack and defense as he created a shield of plasma energy while simultaneously charging up an attack that would be strong enough to strike Zero.

Meta Knight had the most difficulty of the three heroes, for the tireless gauntlet of mighty foes he's had to deal with one after the other has whittled down his stamina to the point that he can't risk performing an onslaught of sword slashes around his body to deal with the flames. Instead he tries to analyze how the fire drops from the sky, noticing that a particular circular area is not being touched around Zero. Flipping his cape over his body before the fire can touch it, Meta Knight teleports across the floor to appear in the safe zone underneath Zero, then unfurls his cape and quickly leaps into the air, converting the cape into bat wings so he get closer to the pale monstrosity and attack it with Galaxia.

But before he gets even a couple of inches closer he is quickly struck down by a pale red laser from above that Zero guided down with but a simple movement of its eye. Meta Knight is plastered by the antimatter energy buried within the laser, and is left lying on the ground with smoke rising up from behind his cape. _"Predictable…"_ Zero says after the masked warrior has fallen.

But his stoic arrogance costs him his attention on the rest of the battlefield, allowing Kirby to take advantage of the opening Meta Knight accidentally gave him as he thrusts his hands forward and launches a giant orb of plasma straight into Zero's eye. The creature flinches in pain and lurches back from the impact of the attack, the storm of miniature fire dispelling completely as Zero is forced to recover from the strike, his wings flapping him back into the face as green electricity crackles through his bloody eye as a remnant of the attack.

After Zero recovers and flaps its once straight out to put its in place it looks down at Kirby and swings its left wing forward, disconnecting the bloody feathers from the rest of his body and launching them straight out as projectiles while the star warrior is in no position to defend himself. The projectiles hit Kirby one after the other, each doing a pile-up of chip damage on the star warrior's body as Riku is left unable to help him out thanks to Zero charging through the air with the right side of his body taking the lead before he slams straight into the teenage Overlord and sends him flying away with a powerful impact.

Zero then spins his body around and uses his intact left wing to swipe at Kirby, the slight tip of the creature's feathers causing the star warrior to be caught up in a blood red updraft that knocks him helplessly into the air. Zero then pauses himself with his eye pointed at Kirby and rises up into the air after the star warrior, meeting him twenty feet off of the ground as he widens his usually stoic eye and uses a powerful cone shaped pale red laser on Kirby. The star warrior is kept suspended in place as the laser strikes him multiple times, but he folds his arms into his body and concentrates deeply on the Plasma power-up to create a barrier that will weaken most of the damage inflicted upon him.

Once the laser has been finished with Zero lowers his eyelids for but a brief moment, only to widen it again as he notices Kirby crackling with green electricity thanks to the barrier surrounding his body. The star warrior then lowers his arms slightly and smirks cockily at the pale monstrosity before firing another Plasma sphere at point blank into his bloody eye. The attack naturally has more of an impact than before, so much in fact that Kirby is launched back through the air from the ensuing explosion as Zero is sent hurtling a good few yards away.

Kirby flips himself around so his feet are pointed towards the ground, but realizing that because of his light body that it was going to take him quite some time for gravity to take hold. Luckily, having landed and recovered from Zero's earlier strike, Riku quickly ran across the dimension and held his left hand out towards the star warrior, creating a comfy cloud in mid-air with his wind powers that catches Kirby with ease from behind his body. The teenage Overlord then swings his hand downward to lower the star warrior back towards the ground while turning his attention towards the pale monstrosity as its large body goes hurtling a fair distance further before it finally widens its eye and stalls its flight with a swipe of both wings.

Thanks to the lack of feathers in his right wing, more weight is put into the left part of his body as he brakes, and his body turns more in that direction until he is slanted diagonally across the air. With a simple thought Zero pushes masses from his body through his broken wings, expunging through the tips of his membranes replacement feathers that take on a similar red hue that the others had. After straightening his body outright, Zero watches as the two heroes still in the battle gather together, a move that he was ready to take advantage of instantly.

Zero straightens its wings out, stiffening them fully and spreads the feathers along both sides up and down as the "halo" atop its head glows a pale bright yellow, filling the dimension with a blinding flash of light that catches both heroes off-guard. The entire dimension begins to rumble for a good fifteen seconds as Zero infuses each tip of his wings with energy, launching them all out in the form of a macros of lasers that brighten the sky immensely until they divert their path upwards and home-in on the two heroes.

Riku senses something amiss with the lasers that travel towards them across the sky. They were not composed of anything related to either Zero or Dark Matter, and had a rather familiar aura to them. _"He's actually using my Light element against me…" _The teenage Overlord thinks in disbelief, disgusted in turn by the hypocrisy of Zero's actions as he readies his sword and leaps back to dodge the first of many lasers alongside Kirby, who leaps off to the left while rubbing his hands together to build up the energy necessary for launching a counterattack.

The boy glances over at the star warrior and upon noticing his choice of actions realizes that there might be a way to make Kirby's attack work better at such a long distance. As Riku leaps back to dodge a laser shot, followed by a backflip to dodge two more that fall at the exact same time, the teenage Overlord exclaims to Kirby loud enough so that only he would hear "Hey Kirby! Try and get into position in front of me! I got an idea!"

The star warrior, with his plasma shield almost at full strength, glances back at Riku as he leaps back and forth across the dimension in order to dodge Zero's onslaught, all the while sweat starts to form across his face. "I'll try and do it, but don't hold your breath!" Kirby proclaims in a somewhat panicking tone of voice.

Riku understood why Kirby was starting to lose it. The lasers showed no sign of relenting, and every leap and bound that the two heroes performed ensured that their energy would dwindle enough to the point that Zero would be able to pick them off with ease. Surely separating the two of them this far wasn't in the plan, but that would just make it all the easier to perform his desired task. But the star warrior pressed on through the descending field of lasers so he could line up with the teenage Overlord, ducking and sliding beneath a couple of lasers until he glances off to the right and sees Riku about to be lined up with the side of his body.

Kirby skids and turns himself towards Zero, pointing both of his hands towards the pale monstrosity as even more lasers head towards his ally. Riku leaps over a laser with just the right timing so the top of it will have vanished by the time it impacts with the ground. The teenage Overlord then sticks a perfect landing and proceeds into a sprint towards Kirby that allows him to outrun the descending lasers with ease. As he gets ever closer and sees the lasers moving towards the star warrior, Riku leaps forward and lets his momentum carry him along the air as he proclaims "FIRE IT NOW!"

Kirby launches off his Plasma sphere towards Zero, the move being timed so perfectly that Riku is able to land on top of it with the help of his Electricity element, which allows him to stick to the top of the sphere and actually guide it through the many lasers that Zero continues to fire off from his wings. Swerving left and right through the air while holding his sword out beside his body, the teenage Overlord inches closer and closer to his target, who actually takes note of his approach and widens his eyes to let loose a pale red beam similar to the one he struck Kirby with earlier. But the same trick doesn't work twice, as Riku flips the orb in an arc, causing his body to go upside-down on the sphere but nonetheless succeeding in dodging his attack in doing so.

After that Riku flips the orb back into its original position and boosts its speed to cover the final leg of his trip towards Zero, surprising the pale monstrosity by slamming the Plasma sphere straight into his bloody eye with more force applied than the two other Plasma shots beforehand. With a mighty electrical explosion launching the teenage Overlord into the air as Zero is hurtled back across the dimension, Riku folds his sword beside the right part of his body and looks straight down at the pale monstrosity as he spins around in mid-air.

From the bottom of Zero's tail a green cactus-like appendage has emerged, which spouts out green blood at an unnatural pace as the pale monstrosity staggers about in an attempt to recover. With blade set on fire, Riku waits until the appendage has crossed the front of his line of sight, at which point he widens his eyes and dashes downward, splitting the appendage in half with a single swipe of his flaming blade and descending through the entire dimension in the form of a thing blazing streak as Zero freezes in place in mid-air.

Riku slams against the ground, sending forth a tiny flaming shockwave on all sides of his body as he looks up towards the sky and watches how after a few mere moments the mighty Zero begins to plummet diagonally through the sky, carried in that direction by the forceful manner in which the teenage Overlord cut through his tailed appendage until he crash lands on his back a fair twenty feet away, the girth of his body sending a powerful tremor through this dimension as his wings flatten against the ground on both sides of his body.

As Riku looks on ahead at the pale monstrosity, he gets a light grin on his face and says to himself quietly "Alright, I got him."

As he makes this comment Kirby runs up behind him, carrying on his back the still unconscious Meta Knight. The star warrior looks over at Zero's fallen body and proclaims cheerfully "Woo-hoo! We did it Riku, we saved Dream Land from Dark Matter and Zero!"

The teenage Overlord glances back at Kirby and says to him "Hey, it was really all your doing. If it wasn't for your Plasma power and determination, I probably wouldn't have been able to reach Zero at all." His tone is naturally humble as he speaks.

"…_Your celebration is ill-timed, heroes." _The emotionless voice of Zero carries through the dimension and surprises the heroes as they face the pale monstrosity, watching as he lifts himself off the ground and slowly retracts his tail appendage into his body, green ooze dripping out like a molasses waterfall as he does so. He then glares at the heroes with his single eye, saying to them _"Did you really think my defeat would come so easily? Surely Kirby, you above all else should have known that…"_

Riku swings his blade out while Kirby drops Meta Knight behind him ready to charge up another Plasma shot, but before the battle with Zero could resume an orb of Dark Matter suddenly appeared beside the pale monstrosity and spoke to him in a mental whisper. Zero's eye widened in surprise, and after the Dark Matter orb flies off the pale monster turns towards the heroes and says to them _"I will have to postpone our conflict for the moment…We have found what I seek…And that is the gateway to the Mirror World…" _

_Next Time: Kirby's Return to Mirror World_


	13. Chapter 12

**Chapter 12: Mind and Matter**

Zero's words took Kirby and Riku off-guard, the star warrior more-so as he stood in front of the pale monstrosity after the Dark Matter orbs had left his line of sight. "The Mirror World? Huh?! How could you possibly know about that?!" Kirby says in a tone of utter shock.

"_How could I not? That world, meant to be your polar opposite, is crucial to my very origin. When I head to that world, I will become whole once more…" _Zero once again speaks in cryptic words, and swung his right wing towards the sky to command a couple of Dark Matter orbs to bring down the object he had long desired to obtain.

Kirby begins to charge up a Plasma charge shot, caring little about just why Zero wanted to go to the Mirror World and immediately focusing on wanting to get rid of Zero once and for all. The star warrior fires a charge shot after a quick build-up period and watches as the pale monstrosity swings his left wing forward and cuts the plasma shot down with a single swipe. _"You will not stop me from accomplishing this task…" _Zero says meticulously towards Kirby.

The Dark Matter orbs descend from the sky, carrying with them a large oval-shaped mirror with a holy golden embroidered rim. Riku quickly dispels his sword and folds his arms beside his body, creating tiny fire orbs in each hand as he looks up at the mirror, exclaiming towards Zero in the process "Don't know what you are planning, but it will fail without that mirror!"

In an attempt to dislodge the mirror from the grip of the Dark Matter orbs and shatter it for good, Riku swings his arms out rapidly in front of his body, sending out an onslaught of miniature flaming comets that indiscriminately seek out the two orbs. But Zero quickly glides in front of his servants and turns his back away from them, taking the full brunt of the teenage Overlord's attack with both his back and wings, making sure to position himself so perfectly that he doesn't engulf the Dark Matter orbs back inside of himself in the process.

With each comet creating a small smoking impact on Zero's body, Riku eventually pulls his arms down and smolders off the flames attached to the tips, letting out an annoyed sigh as he thinks to himself _"He's really desperate to enter that mirror…But there's still one way to stop him."_

The teenage Overlord dashes forward, surprising Kirby as the star warrior prepared yet another Plasma shot in hopes of making Zero flinch. Riku got underneath the pale monstrosity as it began to drag the Light elemental orb from its body. The orb looked ready to shine brightly as hinted by the glimmer that came from the very front of the sphere. Diving towards the ground, the teenage Overlord turned towards Zero's underside and thrust his arms out, sending forth a rocket of compressed air towards the Light element.

But Zero, calculating let calm, planned for more defiance from the heroes and immediately called upon a swarm of five Dark Matter orbs to merge together into a singular blob big enough to take the compressed air head on and explode unsurprisingly in a puff of air. This defense, though minor in scope, gave Zero just enough time to utilize the Light element for his purposes. The mirror suspended in front of his body shone brightly, the reflection of the pale monstrosity fading away from his view as it was replaced with the overview of a circular world containing eight realms based around different environments.

The mirror then began to enlarge in size to accommodate not just Zero's body mass, but also that of the cocoon that Marx had been wrapped in which was being carried down by a horde of Dark Matter at that very moment. Without so much as a moment of hesitation, Zero flew right into the portal to the Mirror World with the cocoon behind him as Riku pushes himself back onto his feet thanks to his earlier maneuver and exclaims in anger "Darn it, he made it through!"

Kirby then says to Riku as he quickly picks up and tosses Meta Knight onto his back "Well then lets not stand around here! We need to go after him before he seals the portal off!"

The star warrior dashes forward and leaps high into the air, and despite the weight of the masked knight on his back he is able to zip right through the bottom part of the mirror portal with ease. As the front of the portal ripples, Riku slams his right hand against the ground and summons forth a diagonal air current that launches him straight into the portal right behind Kirby, leaving that strange dimension behind him in the process.

The teenage Overlord expected to land on solid ground to follow Zero, but much to surprise and disdain he ended up emerging from another mirror that was suspended high up in the sky above the strange spherical world the pale monster saw before he used the Light element. As Riku's eyes widened gravity began to take hold of his body, but he nonetheless looked forward and watched as Zero cut a swathe through the clouds in the sky with his wings. The cocoon was still in tow behind him, naturally.

Riku was wanting to puff up his cheeks and fly after Zero, but when he recognized the lack of Kirby in the immediate area he looked down and saw as the star warrior was rapidly falling towards a grassy part of the planet's surface. Meta Knight's weight likely prevented Kirby from taking flight, and seeing as the star warrior couldn't have predicted the portal dropping them off in the sky he wasn't able to get the Warp Star to their location in time. Riku lets gravity drag them towards the ground so he could land beside Kirby before the rotation of the planet got them separated.

As the teenage Overlord fell towards the ground he paid close attention to where Zero was going, noticing that he was heading for a small rainbow at the very center of the planet. Since Kirby was more familiar with this world then he was, he was hoping that the star warrior would explain what lied near the rainbow once they landed. The ground got closer and closer with each passing second, and after Kirby landed feet first on the ground it only took Riku five seconds to make it there himself. With feet nuzzled by the field of grass blades, the teenage Overlord took one more glance towards the sky alongside the star warrior and watched as Zero disappeared behind a large thicket of clouds.

Riku wishes he could snap his fingers in disbelief at that moment, but would instead have to settle with a mock version of that noise echoing in his mind as he looked at Kirby and said to him "I don't get why you picked up Meta Knight. He's no good to us unconscious, and we were still close enough to the Halberd that he would have been able to make it back safely."

The star warrior dropped the masked knight onto his back behind him and turned around to look at his unconscious body, saying in a concerned tone "Well who knows if any Dark Matter orbs wouldn't have shown up and taken over his body? Besides, all he needs is a Maximum Tomato and he'll be back to normal health."

Kirby's usual optimism shines back through after a long time of it being gone. The change in environment and the lack of Zero's presence at the moment probably helped the star warrior calm down. But nonetheless, Riku was quick to point out with a wave of his right hand "Well I guess this is a safe enough spot for Meta Knight to rest, but we really need to chase after Zero now."

Kirby shakes his head and says to Riku "This won't take too long. Maximum Tomatoes are pretty easy to find." The star warrior then stands up straight and looks back and forth, trying to get a grasp of the area as he whispers "Now I know there is one around here somewhere…"

Suddenly, Kirby is handed a giant red tomato with a black-M marked on the front of it. Without questioning anything at first, the star warrior says "Oh, thank you for helping out Riku" and proceeds to turn and place the Maximum Tomato on top of Meta Knight's mask so the vegetable can heal him up after a good few seconds of converting into magical energy.

The teenage Overlord widens his eyes and says to Kirby "Ummm…I think you might want to look to your right" following up with a nudge of his head in that direction.

The star warrior turns his head to the right and his heart skips a beat for a moment as he sees a dark version of himself standing in front of him. The creature has a body of dark grey and feet of black, with not a single color appearing in his hollow white eyes. This dark copy of Kirby mirrored his movements perfectly as they stared at each other. Kirby raised his left hand and waved at his copy, watching as it did the same but without a single emotion present on its face. After taking a moment to look at his copy, the star warrior smiled and said "Oh hey, you're my Mirror World self, right?"

Kirby's words cause the shy copy to leap back and shiver timidly as it stands a fair seven feet away from the two heroes. Kirby looks over at Riku, who looked ready to take up his sword until he heard the star warrior mention "Its alright, he's on our side. He's just a little shy."

As the Maximum Tomato sinks into Meta Knight's body, Kirby looks at his copy and says to him "What are you doing all the way out here?"

Shadow Kirby looks at his alternate self and nods his head, gesturing his arms to the right as he summons forth a small oval mirror with a silver trim. He jabs once with his right hand and the reflection on the surface of the glass glides across the mirror, revealing a few images showing things from Shadow Kirby's point of view. The first image depicts Kirby and three different colored copies in a fiery battlefield against a gigantic eye that looked very similar to Zero, but with a more solar-like appearance.

The second image showed Kirby using Galaxia to slay this eye, followed up with the four Kirbys merging back together as they enter the mirror back to Dream Land with Meta Knight following close behind. Then the third image shows Shadow Kirby watching as the flaming eye starts reforming for no explainable reason, though this time the alternate Kirby waves his hands desperately in the air as the image switches off to show Shadow Kirby creating a barrier to lock the flaming eye into an area with a bunch of other smaller mirrors that all had a rectangular frame representing a different part of this world.

Then Shadow Kirby points to the sky as the mirror beside his body changes to show live footage of Zero attacking the barrier with all of his might, the Dark Matter orbs working alongside him as the front of the barrier is engulfed in bloody flames. As he attacks, the top of the clouds behind which he hides flashes red and black, and Shadow Kirby begins flailing his arms around in a deep panic. Kirby looks at his alternate self and says to him "Its ok, calm down Shadow Kirby. Ummm…So what's going on exactly?"

Kirby seemed puzzled by everything that was happening on the mirror, and as Riku gave him a disbelieving glare he said "You really can't piece together what's going on?"

The star warrior nodded his head and replied to the teenage Overlord with a firm "Well I know Zero is attacking a barrier that Shadow Kirby created, but why show us Dark Mind? He's dead."

Shadow Kirby shook his head repeatedly in an urgent manner and jabbed towards the mirror a good few times, repeating the images of the flaming eye reforming, which necessitated the creation of the barrier in the first place. Kirby then understood what his alternate self was getting at, and exclaimed in disbelief "Wait, are you telling me that Dark Mind has come back to life?!"

Shadow Kirby stopped waving his arms about and nodded his head immediately after Kirby answered his concerns correctly. Riku turned towards the star warrior and said to him "Just what we needed, another threat to deal with."

Riku then looks towards the sky where Zero is currently firing upon the barrier surrounding the central area of Mirror World and says to himself "But this doesn't make any sense. Why did Zero need to come here? He said something along the lines of 'wanting to become whole', but I don't see how this place fits in with his goal, nor do I understand why he's trying to take down the barrier keeping Dark Mind from…I guess taking over the Mirror World?"

As he makes that hesitant inquiry, Shadow Kirby nods his head to show that the teenage Overlord was correct. Riku then sighs and rubs the back of his head while Kirby murmurs something to himself. Both train of thoughts are broken by Meta Knight, who mumbles out in a tired tone of voice "…To think that neither one of us put two and two together until now, Kirby."

Kirby and Riku glance down at the masked warrior as he pushes himself off the ground with the help of his left hand and Galaxia, and once he was on his feet Shadow Kirby looked a bit frightened and retreated a good couple inches back. Meta Knight looks at the alternate version of Kirby and says "I understand if you are afraid of me, but I am not the evil masked warrior from before."

Before Shadow Kirby can acknowledge Meta Knight's kind remark, the masked warrior steps forward and looks towards the sky at Zero's rampage on the barrier, saying to the two other heroes in turn "The reason why Zero is trying to break through that barrier? Why he's gone through all this effort to reach the Mirror World at the same time that Dark Mind has supposedly started coming back to life? The answer was right in front of us the whole time…Dark Mind and Zero are two halves of a once singular being."

Kirby and Riku tilt their heads, not really feeling the impact of Meta Knight's revelation until they take a moment to compare the two creatures' appearances to realize that there is a rather eerie similarity between them, at which point they both exclaim in a panicked tone "WHAT?!"

Riku stutters and says to the masked warrior "I-I can see how a look at their appearances would lead to such an assumption, but that just likely makes Dark Mind Zero's Mirror World counterpart. They can't be separated halves of the same person."

Meta Knight glances over his right shoulder and quietly yet bluntly says to the teenage Overlord "If they were merely alternate selves, then how would Zero know that Dark Mind is here along with knowing the name of this world?"

"He really shouldn't be able to…" Riku slowly says, with each passing second his mind puts more of the puzzle together, ending off with a slap to the front of his face and a prolonged sigh as he murmurs "You have got to be kidding me…"

"So Zero's goal all this time was to come to the Mirror World and merge with Dark Ming to recreate his original body? That's insane!" Kirby exclaims in disbelief.

"And yet very worrisome…Both monsters are powerful in their own right, but if they regain their original form they may prove to be unbeatable." Meta Knight is quick to point out.

"Then we need to destroy one of them for good! If we are in the Mirror World, then getting rid of Zero here should stop him and Dark Matter from ever coming back!" Kirby comes up with a rather sound game plan, but as Meta Knight points out there is a major flaw in it.

"We are in no condition to engage Zero in aerial combat. Your Warp Star lies all the way back in Dream Land along with the Halberd, and the Elemental Overlord cannot fly in his current state. With the swarm of Dark Matter at his side, Zero would swiftly overwhelm us." After taking Meta Knight's words into consideration, Kirby quickly began to think up another course of action, only for his alternate self to jump high enough to grab his attention.

"What is it Shadow Kirby?" The star warrior asks, prompting Shadow Kirby to land and jab his arms towards the mirror beside him. The reflection changes to show the area with all the other rectangular mirrors along with a grandiose one in the very center.

Kirby quickly understands what his alternate self was suggesting, and says to both Meta Knight and Riku "Then we should take down Dark Mind. Zero's plan will be foiled if either he or Dark Mind die, so we just need to kill one now and take care of the other one afterwards. All we need to do is jump through Shadow Kirby's mirror and we can confront Dark Mind easily! He won't even see it coming!"

"…That is a valid course of action, Kirby. But if we are to accomplish this, we must go now." Meta Knight makes this point known, and it only takes a moment for Shadow Kirby to guide the mirror in front of his body so the heroes an use it as a warp portal to the central area.

Meta Knight and Riku waste no time in leaping into the mirror, but Kirby takes a moment to look at his alternate self and say "Hey, take care of yourself, alright? I'd hate for something bad to happen to you" before leaping into the portal. Shadow Kirby then causes the mirror to shatter with a thought and he proceeds to run off to safety in the distance.

With the heroes now in the cloudy area where the other mirror portals lie, they take a moment to look up towards the blackened sky and observe how Zero's flames have engulfed the barrier to the point that its impossible to see the pale monstrosity in the slightest, which actually worked towards their advantage since Zero wouldn't notice them leaping into the golden mirror at the very center of this area. For each hero that leaps into this reflective portal, the mirror ripples more and more until they have all gone through.

Once on the other side of the mirror the heroes land on a dried, cracked red surface in the middle of a giant gaseous area with flaming distortions in the sky similar to the area they fought Zero in a while ago. The search for Dark Mind didn't take long at all, for floating in the air in front of them is a large burning eye with a dark red wavy aura and an amber eye that had a glistening black pupil. The sun-like surface of the eye ripples around, the main eye itself widening as it gazes down upon the three heroes. Dark Mind says in an echoing voice "Kirby and Meta Knight?! What are the both of you doing in my domain?!"

Dark Mind then looks at the strange red Kirby and asks "And who are you supposed to be?"

Meta Knight draws Galaxia while Riku draws his own sword, and Kirby in turn starts charging his Plasma power-up. Kirby then states to the puzzled Dark Mind "We're here to defeat you again, this time for good!"

Dark Mind exclaims in a confused tone of voice "I don't even know how you could have figured out that I came back to life! But whatever, you saved me a mess of trouble in trying to find you. Once I defeat you, I will quickly conquer-"

Kirby wastes no time in firing a charged Plasma shot straight at Dark Mind, who widens his eye and glides to the right to swiftly dodge the attack, proceeding to exclaim in disbelief "Hey! I haven't even stated my desire to conquer-"

Riku and Meta Knight leap at Dark Mind at the same time from different sides, hoping to ascend and cut him off with an "X" shaped cross slash in mid-air only for the flaming eye to twist himself around to shrink himself down and avoid the attack, at which point he expands back to his normal size and his aura flares up gruesomely as he states "What is your problem?!"

Kirby, as he quickly starts charging up another Plasma shot, says to Dark Mind "Sorry, we're in a bit of a hurry here. You need to be taken care of quickly."

These words pique Dark Mind's interest, but instead of wasting time asking questions when the sword wielders were applying pressure upon him on the ground with a single crescent sword slash of their respective elements from both sides the flaming eye instead summoned forth two six-sided mirrors beside him to deflect the attack while saying to Kirby "Very well, then fight we shall!"

Dark Mind wastes no time in moving the two mirrors back and forth around his body, making sure that all areas are swiftly protected by any projectiles as the innards of his eye flashes and he launches a pale blue laser straight at Kirby. The star warrior is forced to leap off to the side, but Dark Mind summons another laser in rapid succession that blasts Kirby straight on and launches him a good distance away into the air. He also loses the Plasma power-up in the process of being sent flying.

But this attack gives Meta Knight a prime chance to leap into the air and drill himself forward with Galaxia at the forefront, the sword grinding against the surprisingly hardened eye of Dark Mind for a good three seconds before the masked warrior passes by and unfurls from his drill-like state. Meta Knight turns lands on the ground, but not before Dark Mind tosses one of his mirrors straight at him. The mirror shatters upon making contact with the warrior's body, making Meta Knight flinch as four miniature yellow crescent blades spread out in four diagonal directions, two of them scratching the back of the warrior's cape and reaching his skin before all four collapse upon themselves and vanish.

It cost Dark Mind a little bit of his health to harm Meta Knight, but he felt the effort was worth it. But as he was distracted with this joy, Riku leaped high up into the air with a column of flame surrounding his sword and with a quick swing he thrust that mighty column right through Dark Mind's entire body, the flames expanding outward until every bit of the flaming eye's body was consumed. This proved to be a surprisingly effective tactic, for the flame-like texture that Dark Mind had was all for show and didn't provide any resistances for fire itself.

But as he was consumed by the fire, Dark Mind's eye flashes brightly, consuming his realm with light as all of a sudden everything is thrown upside-down. With even gravity being affected, Riku slams head first into the ground that has been brought above his body, while Meta Knight is dragged through the air and forced to backflip so he can land on his feet. Kirby's fate is to have his body pulled in the opposite direction as he was mere inches away from the ground, which also resets his momentum and causes him to land on the inverted ground with the same force as he would have when the ground was normal.

Dark Mind proceeds to flash his eye again, summoning forth a strange crystal-clear sphere on the ground with a checkered stripe in the center of it. The sphere pulsates, each pulse growing larger and brighter as it seems to be counting down to a detonation point. Riku recovers from his fall and looks at the sphere, following Meta Knight in his hastiness to disable the supposed bomb as they charge straight at it, falling for Dark Mind's plan as the flaming eye quickly floats above the teenage Overlord and lets out a light laser burst that forces him to leap back to avoid getting hit. Dark Mind then quickly glides over to try and strike Meta Knight, but the masked warrior increases his speed just enough to avoid being nicked by the tip of the laser. He then skids along the floor as he grinds his sword against the ground, building up pressure so when he pulls it up and swings it outright he cuts right through the bomb and breaks apart its energy to the point that it won't even release a tiny explosion.

With Dark Mind's bomb thwarted with relative ease, his eye flashes brightly and he returns the perception of the world back to normal, but as the heroes fall back onto the regularly aligned ground he summons forth a swarm of mirrors from all directions to try and overwhelm the heroes. Of course, this desperation was a terrible move on his part, since with each mirror being connected to his own life force all it took was Meta Knight spinning around rapidly with Galaxia held vertically near his body to create a small golden tornado while Riku holds his sword in front of body and spins around rapidly like a saw blade for the mirrors to be shattered one after another.

The crescent blades that emerged didn't matter in the slightest for the sword wielders, since they cut them apart the very moment they appeared. But those that didn't get dealt with were sucked in by Kirby, who finally recovered from the earlier attack and widened his mouth as much as possible to suck in every crescent, not stopping in the slightest until all three heroes land on the ground. Kirby's body is puffed up like a giant pastry at this point, and he was about ready to launch off a massive star at Dark Mind's eye.

Recognizing the danger the star warrior's attack represents for him, Dark Mind creates the mother of all mirrors in front of his body that was double his own height and three times the width. Kirby, despite the swear around his rotund body being caused from the stress of keeping such a mighty star inside of him, trusted his friends with breaking the mirror quickly as he held the star until the right moment arrived. Meta Knight leaped at the center of the mirror and used his drill maneuver to push against it, increasing the rotation as far as his body will allow him to handle it.

With cracks starting to form in the mirror from the pressure of Meta Knight's attack, Dark Mind starts to grimace in pain, which weakens him enough for him to be frozen in place as the masked warrior lands on the ground and Kirby opens his mouth to release a gigantic three-dimensional star that is half the size of the mirror. The star crashes right through the cracked mirror with ease and heads straight for Dark Mind's terrified eye, and the ensuing collision release a massive detonation of hundreds of tiny stars that scatter along the skies as the remainders of the giant mirror break apart into nothingness.

Dark Mind's eye twitches uncontrollably, his entire body quivering in mid-air as Kirby's powerful attack is putting him on the verge of death once more. With an angered declaration of "I can't believe I'm going to be destroyed again! Curse you Kirby! Curse you Meta Knight! Curse you…YOU RED BLOB!"

While Riku takes a little offense towards Dark Mind's statement, Kirby shrugs and says "Dark Mind, you really were one of my easiest villains to beat. Honestly, glad we went for you fi-"

Before he finishes his sentence, Kirby and the other two heroes were suddenly struck in the back by a wide-sweeping laser that creates an explosion along the ground that knocks them forward and onto their faces. The origin point of the laser is Zero, who finally broke through the barrier with an unimaginable number of Dark Matter orbs swarming around his body as his pale image emerges through the reflective portal. Dark Mind's eye understandably widens in shock as he looks upon Zero's eerily similar body.

"W-Who are you? State your name intruder!" Dark Mind exclaims, his body's shaking slowing down for some rather strange reason as Zero looks at him and states without emotion _"Do you not recognize me? I am your missing half, Dark Mind…" _

Dark Mind's eyes squints together forebodingly, the memories of his past climbing outward as he says in a recollecting voice "Ah yes…The wings had me fooled for a moment. It has been a very long time since the two of us were separated. So then…Shall we not waste any time in merging back to our original self?"

_Next Time: The Strongest Warrior_


	14. Chapter 13

**Chapter 13: The Strongest in the Galaxy**

All three heroes lie on the ground, weakened but not yet thrown unconscious thanks to Zero's devious attack from behind. As the red gaseous realm of Dark Mind vibrates without reason the two monstrosities stare each other down, with Zero stating to the burning eye _"Unfortunately, there is something we still must do before we become one again."_

Gesturing his right wing behind his body, Zero commands a horde of Dark Matter to bring through the gargantuan mirror the cocoon that Marx is still wrapped inside of. As it floats overhead, the heroes start to push themselves up with their hands, watching as Zero takes the cocoon between himself and Dark Mind. The burning eye says to his other half "What is this supposed to be?"

"_The being with the means to bring us back together. Once a hundred of my Dark Matter orbs have wrapped themselves around the shell of this pitiful undead creature, the two of us shall meld with the two forces and become one once more." _Zero's explanation caused Dark Mind's eye to crease in ecstasy, and he said after a joyous laugh "Then waste our time no longer my other half!"

Zero nodded, and with a wave of his wings into the sky every single Dark Matter orb he created swarmed themselves around the floating cocoon. The hundreds of eyeballs that once littered the sky vanish as they become one with the shell encasing Marx, and it only takes a few seconds for Dark Matter to become nothing more than a foggy, wiggling casing around the cocoon. As the merging of two monstrosities drew nearer with each passing second, Meta Knight tried to force himself onto his feet with Galaxia gripped in his right hand.

It was a struggle for him to accomplish this task with the pain from Zero's attack from behind still fresh on his body. He collapsed onto the tops of his feet and was forced to plant the tip of his blade into the ground, looking up in annoyance as both Zero and Dark Mind started to liquefy. Every bit of flesh on their bodies turned into a pale and burning looking goop respectively, the liquid ooze being drawn straight towards the cocoon as though it had a gravitation pull surrounding it. At first Zero and Dark Mind's liquefied bodies stuck to their own respective halves, but after a pale white glow shone through the single crack separating the two halves they began to merge almost instantly.

The merging of the two halves starts a compression of the cocoon down to the shape of a different figure than any of the three entities that compose its form. As the end of the mergence gets closer, light pours out from multiple parts of the body, tearing apart the gaseous realm with a bright shine as the very foundation of this realm trembles. Meta Knight, drawing on all of his strength, pushes himself onto his feet and quickly swings Galaxia outward in front of his body, hoping to carve down the person before the transformation was complete with a single jagged projectile.

But as he fell back to on top of his feet and stabbed his sword into the ground his projectile shattered upon connecting with the front of the brightly veiled figure. Meta Knight actually visibly stared in disbelief at what had occurred, letting out a weakened stutter of "I-Impossible…" before recognizing that his own weakness dulled the strength of Galaxia to the point that it was ineffective in his hand at that moment.

Riku turned towards Kirby, trying his hardest to not fall unconscious as he said to the star warrior "Hey Kirby, do you have faith that we are going to survive whatever emerges from that light?!" exclaiming his inquiry to override the sound of the dimension trembling in the wake of Zero and Dark Mind's mergence.

Kirby nods his head and says to the boy "Call it a hunch, but I don't think we are out of this quite yet!"

The teenage Overlord grins at Kirby's enthusiasm and says to him "Good! Then toss me and Meta Knight some of that faith, cause we are going to need every scrap of it to survive what's coming!"

Riku turned back at the light veiled figure and thought to himself _"Whatever those two are about to become…This power they are producing is unlike anything I've ever seen…" _Suddenly, the boy's eyes widen as he realizes something rather grave in his head _"Oh crap! Zero still had my Light element! Don't tell me that got merged in with the two of them…"_

With the fusion at a crescendo, light beams shoot off from multiple angles of the completed figure's body, the realm vibrating at such a high intensity that it was any wonder that it was still stable. After all this build-up, it only took but a single raise of the being's weapon and hard swing of it to the right for the light surrounding his body to shatter and the dimension's stability to return to normal. However, the environment has taken on a drastic change in appearance. The red gaseous atmosphere has been replaced with a brightly lit starry sky, and the ground has become fragment with a crystal dark-blue texture. Across the landscape also lies curved rocky structures that have become broken due to the wear of time itself.

Meta Knight's eyes widen, but he is the only one to have this reaction on his face as he looks up at the figure and says "This is impossible! This can't be your true form!"

Riku looks up at the being and thinks to himself _"No way…I don't believe it…" _his expression trying its hardest to remain neutral as he continued to gaze at the figure in the sky.

Wielding what can only be described as a powerful pink lance of hardened crystal in his right hand and a white shield with a pink cross is a grandiose warrior with a hot-pink body that is darker than Kirby's. Covering his face is a whitish-platinum mask with two golden horns rising up from the head and shoulder pads that extend beyond the length of Meta Knight's own pads. On his feet are metallic shoes with the same coloring and material as the rest of his armor. With the mask having a vertical and horizontal gap carved into it, the warrior opens his nearly rectangular red eyes and glares down upon the three heroes, spreading his wide feathered wings across the starry sky as he extends his lance beside his body.

Kirby says to Meta Knight "Hey, you recognize Zero and Dark Mind's true form? Have you fought this guy before?"

Meta Knight nods his head towards Kirby's second inquiry, saying as the mighty warrior floating before them takes a moment to gaze upon his revived body "A while ago, I recollected the parts of the broken NOVA and asked him to grant me the honor of fighting the strongest warrior in the galaxy…That warrior was Galacta Knight, the very same being you see before you now."

Galacta Knight flinches upon hearing the mention of his name, and after turning his attention back towards Meta Knight the warrior says in a deeply valiant if somewhat arrogant sounding tone of voice "I see that the fear my name entails has spread across the galaxy since I was split in two."

Meta Knight glares up at Galacta Knight and says to him "There is no way that you can be a combination of Zero and Dark Mind. I defeated you in battle once before and you did not split into two different creatures!"

Galacta Knight is puzzled by the masked warrior's words, and he says to him "You must surely have mistake me for another warrior…In this form, you and I have never confronted each other."

This only raises further questions for not only Meta Knight, but also for the teenage Overlord as well as he thinks to himself _"Wait…Galacta Knight hasn't fought Meta Knight before…But he just came back to life now? What is going on here?"_

Galacta Knight, as though reading the mind of the boy, offers his own thoughts on the matter "Hmph, if you say that the wish granter NOVA is responsible for our confrontation, it is possible that I was called forth from the future. But I have a hard time believing that you defeated me, even though you are still alive at this moment."

Galactia Knight then extends his lance back out to the right and lets out a haughty laugh. He was completely different in personality from his two halves, especially that of Zero, whose only influence in this mergence is blatant in the coloring of the warrior's armor and nothing else. Meta Knight proceeds to ask the winged warrior "And why do you think that?"

The knight points his lance towards Meta Knight and says to him "Even though you wield that accursed blade Galaxia, your skills appear to be unrefined for you to pose even a hint of a threat to me."

"…Of course you would recognize Galaxia though. Back when you were Zero, you visibly twitched upon looking at my sword. Does this blade fill you with dread, monster?" Meta Knight asks, taking advantage of what was noticed before to try and unnerve the haughty Galacta Knight and maybe determine something else.

"Hmph, since you've brought up the subject now, I suppose there is no point in avoiding it." Galacta Knight discards his aggression for the time being to tell the three heroes the tale of his connection to Galaxia.

"_Thousands of years ago, in a glorious time where gods who could shape the very elements and bloodthirsty demons that controlled that which lies beyond the universe dictated what was right, I was a neutral warrior seeking battle with the strongest there were. I sought battle across many worlds, but never once was my desire fulfilled. The weaklings I fought fell before my lance, and no matter how far I progressed it never got harder for me to fight those I confronted._

_Eventually I heard of a war taking place between the leader of the gods and the monarch of the demons and figured that maybe there I would find the strongest warrior. But when I went to the battlefield amongst the stars I was greeted by a single old human in a cloak so rugged that it looked like trash amongst his body. He stood before me, defiant with a blade encrusted in emerald. He proved to be a powerful swordsman deceptive of his own age, and I even began to struggle as he went more on the offensive._

_But my full might as too much, and I eventually broke his sword in two. However, before I could deliver the final blow, the man bowed at my feet and said to me that if given the chance to forge a second sword he would show me a fight worthy of my power. I let him live so he could fulfill that promise, a folly that I regret to this day. As I waited for him to forge a blade of his choosing, I spent my days slaying the weak once more, this time not because I sought out a strong opponent, but because I came to realize that those who could not aptly defend themselves against my might did not deserve to survive._

_Every being I killed, their blood splattered against my armor, and it soon felt as though this very blood became one with my body. No one could stop me, for the war that occurred before separated the strongest forces both sides had available, leaving only that sword-forging old man to stand against me._

_As promised, he returned to confront me with the very blade you wield now Meta Knight. He dubbed it Galaxia, calling it such as a mockery of my title, and in doing so he incited my anger. Our confrontation was legendary, with the very planetary landscape being rend apart at the seams as every sword strikes brought my body close to the ecstasy it long desired. But as we fought, the old man was secretly luring me away from the planet, our confrontation dragging out to the far reaches of space until we came across a lone, star-shaped planet that had just recently been born._

_It was only on the surface of the planet that I realized my folly in trusting this foolish old man with a second chance, as once he landed on the ground he accused me of crimes of treason against his departed leader's people, and both sensing and fearing what my power would come to be someday he created Galaxia with the sole purpose of making sure that I could never cause trouble again. Using a skill the likes of which I had never seen before, the old man split himself in four and rushed me at all sides with Galaxia. _

_I tried to attack all four parts as fast as I could, but all but one was an illusion he created. The real old man struck me halfway through my body with Galaxia with so much force that the ground was cleaved right through, and from little I glanced the ground collapsed at the split and created the very ocean your planet has today. At this point my memory started to get fuzzy, as my body was being split apart at the seams. The old man explained to me that he was going to separate both my mind and the matter that composes my body, making certain that both halves would never meet again for the rest of time._

_Before I could curse the old man, my body split apart, creating both Zero and Dark Mind in the process. Zero was flung out into the far reaches of space, while Dark Mind was sealed away in a parallel dimension the old man created through the use of a magic mirror."_

"But now that I have returned, I have no reason to fear the power that Galaxia holds." Galacta Knight boldly claims, sensing deep down Meta Knight's hidden desire to find out how to use his sword to take down the revived Galacta Knight.

As Meta Knight twitches in shock, he calmly asks "What do you mean by that?"

"…Do you think my material half chose that undead abomination as a puppet for no reason? Not in the slightest. There were two purposes in picking him as a puppet. One was to create a junction point through which our two halves would become one again. The second was far more cunning in nature. You see, the reason the undead abomination returned to life was thanks to the residual energies of NOVA, the wish granter. Therefore, inside of his body lied the essence of NOVA, a source of energy that could still be used for its original purpose if utilized correctly.

Recall the cocoon my once timely servants carried into this realm. Not only did the particular mixture prevent the undead creature from regaining consciousness, but it also squeezed him tightly within and forced out every bit of NOVA's essence that had been put inside of his body. This essence remained trapped within the cocoon, and once we combined with the abomination to become whole again we were able to tap into NOVA's powerset to grant ourselves one wish and one wish only…To keep ourselves whole forevermore, making it so not even the accursed blade Galaxia will ever split us apart again!"

Galacta Knight laughed afterwards with boisterous confidence, his eyelids sealing up tightly as Meta Knight visibly flinches in shock and actually looks as though he was losing his overall resolve to fight. As the winged warrior points his lance down at the heroes, he says arrogantly "I wish I could say that I considered you three to be worthy opponents, but you don't deserve to die hearing a lie."

Galacta Knight raises his lance into the air and begins drawing in energy around his body. Erupting from the ground behind him is a twirling pillar of pure magma that crescendos right above the tip of his wings. He was planning on dealing the final blow to all three heroes with one strike, which would likely render this realm asunder in the process. But Kirby suddenly puts a smile on his face and says to his two companions "Told you my faith would pay off…"

The reason for his happiness at this desperate hour became apparent just a moment later, as from behind are launched three Maximum Tomatoes that land on their bodies and are quickly absorbed into their systems. In an instant the three heroes' bodies are healed up, and as they rise to their feet they quickly leap in three different directions as Galacta Knight takes his lance and performs an air-rending swipe in front of his body in a mere second. Crashing through the dimension is a hardened slash of magma that tears right through the ground the heroes stood on and creates an erupting wall of lava that rises high into the air.

Galacta Knight cuts down the lava wall with a single swing of his lance and states in disbelief "Hmph, so you still had some energy left in you. Or rather…"

Galacta Knight peers up towards the mirror that had been used many times as an entrance to this realm and sees Shadow Kirby peeking up from below the rim with a single hand waving towards the real Kirby. The winged warrior proceeds to state "You had an ally on the other side…That shall not do."

Galacta Knight wastes no time in performing a hardened slash towards the mirror to split it in two, with Shadow Kirby dashing off before he is struck through the mirror. Both halves fall against the ground but do not shatter, though now the way outside of this realm was cut off to all parties on both sides. The winged warrior then gazes upon the heroes and says "Only one of us shall emerge from this alive, and when I do I will continue my quest to find the strongest unopposed by any form of trickery!"

Riku holds his left hand out and starts creating a sphere of compressed fire while summoning forth his blade in his right hand. Tossing the flame orb over his body towards Kirby, the star warrior inhales it without hesitation and suddenly gains a crown of burning fire atop his head. Meta Knight thrusts Galaxia towards Galacta Knight and says "I defeated you once, and now the three of us shall slay you for good!"

Galacta Knight raises his lance into the air and creates a glimmer at the tip, saying in response of Meta Knight's boast "Hold onto that very fantasy as I write your final chapter, warrior."

The winged warrior glides down towards Meta Knight at high speed and as he stops a few feet in front of him he jabs his lance forward multiple times, forcing Meta Knight on the defensive with Galaxia held at a diagonal in front of his body as glowing afterimages are left behind by Galacta's assault. The strength of this warrior bears down on Meta Knight's body in spite of his defensive stance, but having dealt with this attack before the masked warrior only had to wait for a single second opening for him to swing his cape over his body with his left hand so he can quickly teleport behind Galacta and cut him across the back with a single swipe of his blade.

Galacta barely flinches and quickly rockets into the air, creating a bullet-shaped pocket of energy from his rapid ascension that knocks Meta Knight back and briefly ignites his body before he lands on the ground feet first. Galacta then perform a quick U-turn after making it to the proper height and descends back down like an unstoppable meteor, his lance pulled back against the momentum of his descent before he crashes against the ground and plunges his weapon straight into the surface beside him.

Cracks of magma spread out from a ten foot circumference around his body, and as the ground briefly trembles outward pillars of searing magma erupt from various locations on the battlefield. Meta Knight leaps back to dodge one that was about to emerge from below his body, but this pillar was the only one that directly targeted someone as quickly enough Galacta Knight tears his lance from the ground and leaps forward, his body breaking through the magma pillar with the help of his shield in a mere second after Meta Knight jumped back.

With the cross of the shield glowing brightly Galacta Knight launches a crescent blade that Meta Knight is forced to take head-on in the mask if he wanted to deal with the attack that was to follow. Once Galacta Knight swung his lance at the masked warrior, Meta Knight swung Galaxia to meet the weapon. Galacta Knight's might, proving to be vastly superior to his opponent, causes the clash of weapons to result in Meta Knight being pushed back a fair ten feet along the ground.

Galacta Knight doesn't relent in his assault and charges forward with a single backwards thrust of both wings, but as he approached the masked warrior a circle of fire appears in front of his path. This fire had a distinct difference in appearance from the magma that came erupting directly from the ground, but by the time Galacta made note of this distinction he was blasted through his entire body by an erupting pillar of raw fire. Riku falls down in front of Meta Knight, having summoned the flame pillar from his left hand as he leapt past the magma to join him in battle.

The teenage Overlord then holds his left hand into the air and begins dragging the broken fragments of rock from the ground towards him like a magnet. After crumbling the fragments down further so they would be easier to compress together, Riku creates a large boulder that he quickly tosses at the trapped Galacta Knight while stating to Meta Knight "Wait for the opening, me and Kirby got this for now!"

Galacta Knight recovers from the initial heat created by the boy's flames and swings his unharmed wings outright past the confines of the pillar of fire, dragging his left hand through the fire to position his shield in front of his body so he can guard against the boulder as it crashes into him. It rolls around in the air, grinding against the front of Galacta's shield and pushing him away from the confines of the pillar of fire. With his strength returning now that the heat had been taken away from his body, Galacta Knight thrusts his shield forward to crumble the boulder with ease.

But Riku then leaps through his dying pillar of fire and slashes horizontally in front of his body, and even though he knew full well that the shield was still protecting Galacta Knight he had a plan in mind. Hardening the blade of his sword with a diamond coating, the teenage Overlord swings at Galacta's shield and carves a horizontal scar along the cross that digs in a good inch deep. Now that the teenage Overlord knew the strength of Galacta Knight's shield, he could focus more on getting around that stubborn defense and strike the main body.

Thrusting his left hand towards the ground, Riku summons a small tornado on a whim and lands on top of it to keep himself in the middle of aerial combat against Galacta. The winged warrior pulls back his shield and thrusts his lance straight at the teenage Overlord's body while he was still reeling back from his earlier sword swing, only to be met with a powerful fireball from the side that pushes his body just far enough to the left that his lance ends up connecting with the gap in Riku's helix-bladed sword.

Galacta Knight then pulls back his lance and glides back to dodge another large fireball, and after watching it burn past his very line of sight he glances off to the right and sees Kirby with hands clenched in front of his agape mouth. At this point the magma pillars begin to fade out of view, leaving the ground littered with burning cracks as the winged warrior stands before the sight of three heroes. Turning and thrusting his shield forward to launch a crescent projectile the star warrior, Galacta Knight proceeds to look back and meet the swing of Riku's blade with a diagonal fold of his lance in front of his body. As red eyes peer between the thinnest parts of his weapon, Galacta notes "You remind me a lot of the mightiest god who took part in that war thousands of years ago, yet at the same time I can sense the bloodlust of the most vile demon that was a part of that war buried within your body."

"Well I don't know how to explain the second one, but I would hope the first one would ring a bell. But my title does not need to be mentioned, especially since I can tell you don't care." Riku says.

Galacta Knight raises his eyebrows and says to the boy "A wise choice…"

The teenage Overlord then grins, not because of what the winged warrior said, but rather because he sensed a prime chance available to him. Leaping into the air much to Galacta's confusion, Riku keeps the attention of the knight's line of sight as Meta Knight charges up Galaxia and swings it forward to send a powerful jagged wave of energy at Galacta. The winged warrior quickly looks down and flinches in surprise before the attack connects with his body, hitting him with enough force that he is dragged across the air and rendered unable to hold his shield in front of his body to halt the attack.

After a good few seconds the projectile detonates and launches Galacta Knight against the ground, which leaves him vulnerable enough for Kirby to turn himself towards the warrior's fallen body. With a single breath the star warrior creates a fireball and launches it at Galacta Knight with a thrust of his hands, the size of the projectile increasing rapidly as it absorbs the remaining heat in the air, and finally ending off with a fiery explosion as it impacts straight into the winged warrior's body.

With Galacta Knight now covered in smoke from the explosion, Riku raises his left hand into the air and pulls apart large parts of the ground with ease thanks to the earlier efforts of the winged warrior. Combining the chunks into a gigantic boulder that dwarves Galacta Knight immensely, the teenage Overlord mercilessly slams the boulder down upon the warrior, which causes the entire realm to quake. The boy then says quietly "So much for not being opposed by trickery…"

Riku then raises an eyebrow as he looks on ahead, and watches as the boulder he dropped upon Galacta Knight cracks apart at the seams and is swiftly destroyed with a single explosion. The winged warrior rises from the ground with lance pointed skyward, his wings having lost some of their shine alongside his armor. Galacta Knight swings his lance out to the right and looks towards the heroes with a furious glare in his eyes, and within a second he proclaims "You cowardly lot cannot defeat me! I am the strongest in the galaxy! This power of mine, with it I shall take control of Dream Land!"

Galacta Knight's voice becomes distorted as he mentions controlling Dream Land, a motivation that never once arose in his conversations beforehand. The voice that mixed in with this distortion sounded eerily familiar, and the winged warrior gazes upon the surprised eyes of the three heroes as he stutters and says to himself "No! The puppet does not deserve the right to share even a bit of this body!"

Meta Knight walks up beside Riku as the teenage Overlord drops down from his tornado, saying to him in a collected tone of voice as he folds his "Looks like Zero underestimated the catalyst he planned to use. By adding in the consciousness of a third party that had no relation to the two halves, Zero opened up a perfect chance for Marx to try and take control of Galacta Knight's body from within the confines of his mind."

Glancing at Kirby and then back at Riku while saying their names in rapid succession as Galacta Knight grimaces in an attempt to suppress Marx's consciousness, Meta Knight says to them "Now is your chance to destroy Galacta Knight for good."

The two heroes nod their heads and focus their hands in front of their bodies, gathering fire from within to rapidly form a gigantic fireball in front of themselves, both aimed directly at the struggling Galacta Knight, who exclaims to the consciousness of Marx "I don't care about your pitiful desire to conquer a single planet, puppet! My goal is to fight the strongest, now yield to my might before-_If you have to yell to force me to submit, then my efforts must be wearing you down! I'll show you for using my body to revive yourself, parasite!"_

Marx's voice started to become more prominent with each passing second, but the matter wouldn't make a difference from the heroes' perspective. Launching their gigantic fireballs at the stunned Galacta Knight, Kirby and Riku were both certain of their victories over their opponent. But then Galacta Knight snapped and let out a bellowing roar, exclaiming with a snap of his arms beside his body "ENOUUUUGH!"

The shockwave that merged from his body snapped the very fabric of reality in two, deleting the fireballs that were sent his way from existence much to the heroes' surprise. As Galacta Knight floated in the air, his eyes had completely vanished, and its quite clear that more than just his mind had snapped. The mask that had covered Galacta Knight's face had broken into four segments, each one coming off at a different point in time until the entire face was revealed to the heroes. Instead of the normal face one would expect him to have, he had instead a gigantic eye that nearly engulfed the entire surface area of his face, the pupil having a snake-like slit to it as the innards are composed of a rotten swamp green and bloody brown liquids.

Suddenly, Galacta Knight dropped both his lance and shield as his body convulsed in place, the hands bulging out in a bubble-like manner as the confines of the gloves are broken through by clawed black hands of charred, tired flesh. The warrior's wings rapidly decay, leaving in its place only the bones connected to the back of the body. Galacta Knight then starts to grow in size at a rapid pace as his shoes rip apart and become replaced with flailing tentacles that look similar in design to Zero's cactus-like tail. The shoulder pads then falls off from the rest of the body, both of them landing beside the weapons just mere seconds before Galacta Knight's size reaches a point where his feet reach the ground and crush the armor and weapons to bits despite their flailing forms.

The monster that was once a knight holds his limb-less hands out beside his body and opens them wide, drawing from the very black flames of the netherworld itself distorted and inverted neon lances that he grasps tightly in each claw. As the three heroes gaze upon this abomination he lets out a terrifying roar that splits the slit of his pupil open wide and reveals fanged teeth on each side. "W-W-What the heck is that?! Is this a product of Galacta Knight trying to fight back Marx's consciousness?!" Kirby exclaims in disbelief.

Meta Knight, with cape folded in front of his body to block the might of the roar, replies to Kirby with "This was the inevitable outcome of Zero's machinations. While using NOVA's essence to grant their wish was never a bad idea, the very fact that the reason it remained inside Marx was because his wish still had not been fulfilled led to the plan's downfall from the start. Even as a mere essence, NOVA is still doing everything in its power to make sure that Marx conquers Dream Land. NOVA must have strengthen Marx's consciousness so he could take over Galacta Knight's body, but when that failed NOVA transformed Galacta Knight in order to make it a little easier for Marx to take control."

"So what you are saying is that we are facing a mindless monster right now?" Riku says in response to Meta Knight's well-thought out theory.

The masked warrior cannot bring himself to nod his head, and instead merely points out "Far from it. The consciousness of both Marx and Galacta Knight may be fighting for control, but it is entirely possible for one to gain control long enough to focus on us. But I can't imagine the creature's strength is-"

Before his sentence has finished, the mutated body of Galacta Knight takes one step forward, the very act of this step causing the very ground around his foot to disintegrate instantaneously. The realm doesn't even tremble, for the action happened way too quickly for it to react. Then the abomination looks towards the heroes and with its pupil twitching around the eye it draws its focus towards Kirby. Taking his lance in his left hand and holding it horizontally above his floating palm, the monster infuses it with a crimson-black energy and with a single mental command he lunges it straight through the air at the star warrior.

Riku reacts in the very nick of time and swings his arms towards the star warrior, pulling up a large chunk of the ground to create a thick long wall in front of Kirby to protect him from the lance as it zips through the air. The star warrior runs away just to be on the safe side, a valiant effort that goes unrewarded as the spear tears right through Riku's walls like they were paper to its might, and it impacts the ground behind Kirby mere moments later. The spear collapses down into itself, creating a large dome-shaped field of energy that sucks the star warrior in and promptly explodes in a gruesome dark red blast.

Both Meta Knight and Riku attempt to exclaim Kirby's name, but are swiftly struck by an explosion coming from the second lance that the abomination grasped. Meta Knight and the boy are flung in different directions by the explosion, their battered bodies landing face first flatly against the ground. Riku, with just a tinge more endurance, was able to slowly push himself onto his hands and lift up to look over at the snarling abomination as it draws two more lances and continues to be in conflict with itself.

It was at this point that the teenage Overlord realized that the abomination was merely taking of the two nuisances it had any real interest in, for the fact that Meta Knight and Kirby both lied either dead or unconscious…"No, they can't be dead…" Riku rationalized to himself as he shook his head and proceeded to gaze back at the abomination.

At the bottom right corner of the abomination's body, the teenage Overlord could see a light glimmer coming from within. Recognizable to a fault, Riku realized that the Light element orb was still one with the creature's body, and had not been fully absorbed when they fused together. It was likely impossible for one stained with the blood of thousands to take upon the power of the Light element, which was both a relief and yet a tragic concern as the boy recognized that to reclaim that final element he would have to cross a great distance with his weakened body and somehow pull the Light element free from the body.

Looking down at his sword with disdain, Riku thought to himself _"If only I could learn to separate this from my body and have it travel a long distance…I would cut the Light elemental orb free and use my Wind powers to pull it towards me before the abomination could react…"_

The teenage Overlord then notices movement from the left of his body, and watches as the valiant Meta Knight rises to his feet and looks at the abomination head on. With Galaxia in hand Meta Knight takes aim at the creates body and flings his sword straight out like a javelin, collapsing on the floor as the last of his strength is depleted. He didn't so much as flinch as he arose from the ground, and his last action at this moment will prove to be the most crucial of all because of it.

Galaxia slices right through the bottom of the abomination's flesh right below the Light elemental orb, creating a gash large enough for the stone to slip out and drop towards the ground. Riku quickly forces himself onto his feet and pulls back on his hands, creating a forceful gale behind the Light element and flings it across the air and brings it to him in a matter of seconds. However, the pain from the scar in his body along with a quick glance of the orb's flight caused the abomination to focus its attention towards Riku.

The teenage Overlord crushes the Light elemental orb, finally reabsorbing the essence back into his body after it had been lost to him for far too long. The abomination extends one lance out beside its body ready to kill the boy in a single shot, but as Riku held his sword confidently out beside his slanted body he exclaims "Hey ugly, I think its high time that I cut you down for good!"

The blade of Riku's sword gains a pale light aura as a ring of holy light encircles the boy and engulfs him in a pillar of that very element. The lance is flung without prejudice from the abomination, but it is merely swallowed up by the pillar of light before it is capable of doing anything. In mere seconds, the teenage Overlord swings out a crystallized katana and looks up at the abomination as the pillar parts away, his body now adorned in a small white feathered vest as angelic wings have attached themselves to his back and a platinum wreath circles his head.

Riku quickly rises up into the air with a push of his feet and a wave of his wings, and after dashing in front of the view of the gigantic abomination's eye he watches another lance spawn into his left hand. Exclaiming with all of his might "Marx, Galacta Knight, I don't care which one of you is dominating this body at the moment! No matter what selfish thing you desire, I will not let you kill Kirby or Meta Knight or lay even a single hand on Dream Land!" Riku proceeds to thrust his katana at the abomination.

The abomination finally speaks in a gargling distortion of both Marx and Galacta Knight's voices, saying to the boy _"YOu haVe no RIghT to BE hErE! BegONe!"_

Riku slants his eyebrows and says with a determined shake of his head "No, this time you're wrong. I realize now that there is a reason that someone like me belongs on these worlds. When events divert from what I'm familiar with, its up to me to step up and take care of the problems that the heroes of the world are not yet ready to deal with so they can survive and grow strong enough to handle themselves. That is what it means to wield this sword, that is what it means to wear the title of the Elemental Overlord!"

Swings his sword outward in an arc, the teenage Overlord puts on a very serious expression and says in a deep whisper "Now then abomination…Lets cleanse this world of your existence…"

_Next Time: The Ultimate Nightmare_


End file.
